Contractor pleads guilty to two breaches of Health & Safety at Work Act after worker fell 20 m down ventilation shaft.
Contractor Kier Regional was today fined £7000 at City of London Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to two counts of breaching the Health & Safety at Work Act.
The prosecution by the HSE followed an investigation after a 21-year-old man working on the site at 16-18 Young St / 47-53 Kensington High St W8 fell down a ventilation shaft while working on the roof, on 16 August 2004. Miguel Olivares stepped on an area covered by a black plastic sheet beneath which was a 20 m shaft.
Kier Regional, which was also ordered to pay court costs of £2640, contravened construction regulations in its failure to ensure that the hole had suitable and sufficient guard rails, the HSE found.
This amounted to an offence under Section 33 (1) (c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
The company’s second offence under the act was the unkempt condition of the site. Materials were stored haphazardly, raising the risks of slips and trips by workers and making emergency evacuation potentially difficult. The failure to ensure the site was kept in good order and in a reasonable state of cleanliness also contravened construction regulations.
HSE inspector Barry Mullen said that falls from height were still the biggest cause of injury on construction sites.”
He said: “All employers, large and small, must take effective measures to prevent accidents and injuries. This incident could easily have been prevented by simple measures such as guarding the hole and clearly highlighting what it was. But the state of the site as a whole was poor, putting the workers at a high risk of slips and trips. Employers can avoid this by keeping sites tidy and storing goods safely.”
