Roofing companies in Greater Manchester are being urged to make safety one of their top priorities after a man fell through the roof of a Swinton factory.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Tower Roofing Ltd following the incident at Magnesium Elektron Ltd's premises on Rake Lane in Swinton. It was fined £3,500 and ordered to pay full costs of £5,976 at Trafford Magistrates Court on Thursday 23 July.
Lee Bridge was cleaning guttering at the factory on 6 March 2008 when the fragile roof gave way. He landed on a stack of pallets more than two metres below him, before bouncing off them and falling a further two metres to the concrete floor.
Tower Roofing, which is based on Brandlesholme Road in Bury, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 for failing to take suitable precautions to prevent the incident from occurring.
HSE Inspector Angelica Rutherford-Hacon said: "Mr Bridge is lucky to be alive and would have been seriously injured if the pallets hadn't broken his fall.
"The roof he was working on was clearly fragile and should have been boarded out before any attempt was made to clean the guttering. Tower Roofing didn't think enough about safety in advance of the work starting and put its employees at risk as a result.
"Working on roofs can be extremely dangerous so it's vital that work is planned properly. Companies should involve the workers who will be doing the job and consult them about the right equipment to use. Those in charge of the work need to ensure that safe methods of working are properly implemented and checked.
"Tower Roofing allowed two of its employees to carry out work on a fragile roof - with one of them working more than six metres above the ground - without having proper safety measures in place.
"It is only by luck that the incident did not result in a fatality and I hope that it will act as a reminder to roofing companies to treat safety as one of their top priorities."
The HSE is advising roof workers to assume that all roofs are fragile unless they can confirm otherwise, as there may be non-visible damage caused by weathering or general deterioration. More information about working safely on roofs is available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/falls/roof.htm.
Section 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: "Where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury."
Regional reporters should call the appropriate Regional News Network press office.
Issued on behalf of HSE by COI News and PR North West.
Regional reporters should call the appropriate Regional News Network press office who act as HSE's Press Office throughout Great Britain.
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