Access Ltd, of La Moye Road, Vale, trading as Access Scaffolding, admitted failing to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, that people not in its employment, were not exposed to the risk of injury from falling objects.
The company was erecting a scaffold in the Pollet, opposite Next, where the road narrows, when the incident occurred during a lunchtime in January 2024.
CCTV recovered from the area showed a man walking below flinching as the tool fell in to the road just a short distance behind him. A person who was also very close notified the Health and Safety Executive and an investigation began.
In passing sentence, Judge Catherine Fooks said the company had a duty to protect its employees and others from harm in what was a hazardous industry.
Advocate Chris Dunford told the court how the tool, which weighed between 2.3kg and 3.8kg, had fallen several metres into an area that was busy with people. The risk of serious injury or worse was high and the ratchet had been inadequately secured. The company had failed to recognise that because of the scaffold’s location, the risk was higher and had not allowed for the close proximity of the public. The tool had been held in a holster but was untethered.
Footage showed how Access employees were taking items from a lorry that was parked on the opposite side of the street meaning the public were effectively being channelled through a construction site.
Safety barriers beneath the scaffold were moved out further into the street following the incident and though the Health and Safety Executive officer was told by an Access employee that this had been done before the incident, that was found to not be the case.
It was the prosecution case that the barriers had not been positioned correctly when the tool fell, and that the risk assessment and method statements had not been followed.
Two of the four employees were untrained and the training certificates of the other two were not up to date. There was no supervision at the time.
The company had no previous convictions, but had come to attention of the HSE on three occasions in recent years following incidents when working at height.
Defending, Alan Merrien said the lorry would normally have been parked adjacent to the scaffold, but a decision had been taken to move it, following a complaint from a shop owner.
‘My client accepts that it should not have allowed this objection to get in the way of a safer practice and that was a mistake,’ he said.
A plastic clip had attached the ratchet to a tool belt but the item became detached when the man wearing it was climbing through a hatch between decking levels.
The four employees on site included two charge-hands with 45 years experience between them. The lead charge-hand was further up the scaffold at the time of the said incident and it was disputed that there was no supervision, as supervision did not mean minute-by-minute observation.
The training certificates of both charge-hands had expired only three weeks before the incident and the company provided in-house training to all of its staff.
Counsel said his client had promptly reported the incident to the HSE and the main contractor for the building work.
Judge Fooks said it was not to the company’s credit that the HSE had been told at the time that the safety barriers had not been moved after the incident. The company had been advised previously that it needed to pay attention to health and safety matters, albeit for unrelated incidents, so this too was an aggravating factor.
Despite a long submission from Advocate Merrien, the court found that there was no evidence of adequate training for employees, and a lack of supervision on the site, which were failures on the company’s part.
