Health and Safety

A housebuilder has been fined £800,000 after an apprentice bricklayer was injured when a temporary stairwell covering collapsed. The 17-year-old was working as a contractor on a Taylor Wimpey UK Ltd site to build 450 homes at Mead Fields in Weston-super-Mare, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The…

New guidance for judges on health and safety fines could help save struggling construction firms from “an existential crisis”, commentators have said. It comes as new guidance from the Sentencing Council on the level of fines to be handed to very large firms came into force on 1 June. Previously,…

The Health and Safety Executive has launched an investigation after a site worker suffered injuries after being “crushed” at a construction site in York. Ambulance crews were called to the incident which happened at 8.37am on Thursday 29th May in Copmanthorpe, at the site of a new housing development. Miller…

A construction firm and its director have been fined more than £100,000 after a worker suffered “significant life-changing injuries” after falling through a roof. Jack Croft, a subcontractor from Bedale in North Yorkshire, fell 6 metres from a roof while working for contractor Norman Iveson Steel Products on a project…

Two firms have been fined a total of £8,500 after a roofer fell while working on a house extension. The man was one of several workers employed by Roofrite (Shropshire) Ltd who were carrying out work on the roof of a property on 9 December 2022, the Health and Safety…

A firm manufacturing stone kitchen worktops has been fined £60,000 plus costs for repeated failures to protect workers from exposure to hazardous silica dust. In a statement yesterday (22 May), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said its investigators visited Inova Stone Ltd nine times in six years “and found…

Construction contractor J Murphy & Sons was not at fault when a 70-year-old man fell into a trench dug for new power cables, a High Court judge has ruled. Barry Foggoa fractured his femur and suffered other injuries after he slipped on a board crossing the trench in Newcastle in…

A wood supplier has been fined £40,000 for failing to protect its workers from exposure to wood dust. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) launched an investigation into Fakenham-based Nat Pal Ltd after it discovered dust scattered across the floors of its premises, it said. The prosecution was launched after…

EDF has been served with a safety notice by the nuclear regulator after a scaffolder suffered burns while working at Hartlepool Power Station. Today (19 May), the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) issued an improvement notice on EDF, which runs the site, following the incident. It is the second time…

The director of a construction firm has been given a suspended prison sentence after one of his employees was killed after falling from a roof. James Pitsillides, the director of Leicester-based Affordable Lifestyle Design Limited, pleaded guilty to failing to implement fall-protection measures, according to a Health and Safety Executive…