An employee suffered life-changing injuries after falling through a fragile roof while on the job in Nottingham. Housebuilder Cairns Heritage Homes Limited, of Hoton, near Loughborough, has now been fined £80,000 after safety failings led to the serious injuries.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the 2019 incident uncovered a series of safety failings. The worker fell around seven metres from the roof to the floor below while carrying out repairs of a recycling plant, Leicestershire Live reports.
Investigations from the HSE found the Loughborough firm had failed to act on several fronts. The company has now been heavily fined after being brought before the courts.
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The fall happened on August 1, 2019, while the male employee was carrying out repairs to the roof of Nottingham Recycling Limited, in Abbeyfield Road, Nottingham, while a baling machine - used for compacting waste - was not being used. Access to the roof was provided by a scaffold tower, but investigations from the HSE found this was “inadequate”.
The situation was so bad that the employee had to create their own makeshift ladder and staging system from wooden planks to access the part of the roof that needed repairing. Coupled with the roof’s fragile panels, the HSE found “insufficient measures” - such as the lack of safety netting - had contributed to the man suffering serious injuries.
Further investigations uncovered a number of "serious deficiencies" in Cairns Heritage Homes Limited’s planning and supervision of the repair work. The firm was found to have “an absence of a safe system of work”.
Cairns Heritage Homes Limited was charged with breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The firm was brought before Nottingham Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, September 28.
The firm pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the act and was fined £80,000 by the court. The housebuilder was also ordered to pay costs of £9,981.
HSE inspector Philip Gratton said the firm had a responsibility to keep its employees safe. He said: “Work on fragile roofs accounts for around a fifth of all fatal incidents that occur in the construction industry. Those in control of work on fragile roofs and other work at height have a responsibility to devise safe methods of work and to provide the necessary information, instruction, training, and supervision of their workers.
“If a suitable safe system of work had been in place prior to this incident, the life-changing injuries sustained by the employee could have been prevented.”
Cairns Heritage Homes Limited have been approached for comment.
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