Health and Safety

Builder fined £175,000 after worker’s brain trauma

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A London-based subcontractor has been fined £175,000 after a worker’s serious head injuries saw him hospitalised for seven months. The accident took place in March 2019 during concrete-pumping work at a domestic property in north London carried out by Singh Will Mix It. A concrete-pump operator, who was not qualified…

Director of rogue asbestos firm jailed

Asbestos

The director of a rogue asbestos removal firm has been jailed after putting his employees and customers at serious risk of exposure to cancer. Daniel Luke Cockcroft, director of London-based Asbestos Boss, was sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment for failing to ensure the material was removed safely. The firm, also…

Construction firm and director fined after house collapses

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A construction firm and its director have been fined £6,000 after the external wall of a house they were working on collapsed. Servotec Ltd was contracted to build a house in Fallowfield, Manchester in 2020. But an exterior wall collapsed while they were working on it, leading the Health and…

Lendlease among 11 firms facing public work ban

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Lendlease is one of 11 firms set to be barred from public procurement after it failed to sign the government’s fire-safety contract. Developers across England had until Monday (13 March) to sign a contract pledging to remediate fire-safety defects on buildings they had developed and pledge to reimburse any funds…

Government spends £42m on hiring building-safety inspectors

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The government has announced plans to spend £42m on recruiting more than 200 building inspectors and fire-protection officers to support its new high-rise building safety regime. About 110 building inspectors and 111 fire-protection officers will be recruited and trained over the next three years, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing…

Regulator steps in after ‘Achilles heel’ warning on smoke dampers

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The government’s product safety regulator is carrying out a review into smoke control dampers, after an industry body said faulty installation may be an “Achilles heel”. Smoke control dampers are used to automatically prevent the spread of smoke through a building via dynamic air systems such as air conditioning and…

Sellafield fined £400,000 after serious ladder accident

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The operator of the Sellafield nuclear site has been fined £400,000 after a worker suffered life-changing back injuries when he fell three metres from a scaffolding ladder.  Sellafield Ltd, which is controlled by government agency the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, was given the fine after admitting a health and safety breach.…

More industry bodies warn of post-Brexit law cull’s ‘dire consequences’

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Several more industry bodies have sounded the alarm over possible “dire consequences” of post-Brexit legislation to scrap EU laws.  Under the Retained EU Law Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament, around 3,700 pieces of EU law need to be reviewed by the end of this year. Some will be…

Winvic fined for ‘gross and chronic’ silt pollution

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Winvic has been hit with a £160,000 fine and ordered to pay £25,000 in costs for polluting a brook in the East Midlands. The contractor worked on the £67m East Midlands Gateway (EMG), where it built a strategic rail freight interchange that included a rail interchange hub and 10 logistics plots for the…

Firm fined after worker fractures back in roof-light fall

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A company has been fined £12,000 after a worker installing a roof light fractured his back and ribs in a fall. Renka, a Worcestershire-based supplier of windows and doors, was found to have breached workplace-safety regulations following the incident in Cheshire in August 2021. Workers from the company were attempting…