A Cheshire building company has been hit with a fine for £40,000 from the HSE following safety failings at a building site in Altrincham where it was building houses and apartments.
Altin Homes was running the building works at a former petrol station when a pile of building blocks fell through the site hoarding in Altrincham and crashed across a pavement. The company was in control of all construction works and acted as client and main contractor employing numerous trade workers and labourers on site.
When the HSE investigated the collapse of building blocks it was noted that there were other poorly stored blocks on site which were at risk of crashing through the hoarding for a second time. The company was told to remove them as soon as possible to reduce this risk.
The blocks fell through the site hoarding
The HSE inspector served two Prohibition Notices and two Improvement Notices, along with a Notification of Contravention during the first site visits. Trafford Magistrates’ Court heard that some of the issues had been satisfactorily dealt with by Altin Homes following the HSE’s first intervention.
However, on a second visit a fortnight later, it had failed to remove the unsafe blocks which had caused the original incident. In essence it had ignored the recommendations of the inspector and had put its own workers and members of the public at continual risk.
Altin Homes was charged with failing to protect the safety of its employees, failure to protect the safety of others including subcontractors and members of the public and one count of failing to plan, manage and monitor construction work so that it was carried out in a safe manner. As a result the company was fined £40,000 with £3,000 costs.
HSE inspector Matt Greenly said after the case: “Altin Homes Limited failed in its duty to protect their workers, subcontractors and members of the public passing by this site from a foreseeable risk of serious harm.
“Luckily no one was injured when the blocks fell through the site hoarding but, given the size and weight of the building blocks that fell onto the pavement and highway, there was the potential to cause serious injury or even death to both employees and the general public. It was nothing other than good fortune that no pedestrians were passing along the pavement when the blocks fell.”
