Building firm fined £6.6k for safety breaches

A CONSTRUCTION firm from Wolverhampton has been fined £6,600 for putting workers at risk during a room demolition.

Three staff from Alexson Homes, two of which were company directors, were dismantling part of a roof on a former children’s home in Brereton, near Rugeley, in February.

The Health and Safety Executive said that no measures were put in place to prevent the men from falling from the roof of the building, putting them at serious risk of falling almost five metres.

The HSE also said the trio were endangering other people on the building site by dropping materials off the side of the roof in an uncontrolled manner.

An investigation concluded that the roof edge should have been fitted with scaffold edge protection and a rubble chute to protect other workers on site.

Alexson Homes pleaded guilty at Stafford Magistrates’ Court to breaching two sections of Work at Height Regulations 2005.

In addition to the fine, Alexson Homes was ordered to pay costs of £900.

HSE inspector Martin Overstall said: “All too often HSE inspectors are called out to serious or fatal incidents in roof work where the precautions are minimal or absent – it is simply not good enough.

“Alexson Homes was extremely lucky that no one was injured when working in such unsafe conditions.

“Building firms must plan a safe method of working, before starting to work on a site.

“They must put the right precautions in place to protect their workers and others in what can be a highly dangerous industry.”