Take care to protect workers at height warns HSE as construction worker falls from roof

YH/180/09 24 April 2009

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is alerting employers in the construction industry to the dangers of failing to provide adequate protection for people working at height after a man fell 25 feet from a roof.

The warning comes after Pinnacle Scaffolding Ltd of Stockton on Tees, Cleveland, were fined £27,000 and ordered to pay costs of £6,000, and L J McLaren Engineering Ltd of Wooler, Northumberland, were fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £3,000, at Sheffield Crown Court today. Both firms pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 8(a) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

The incident, which occurred on 21 September 2007, involved a self-employed roofer who was sheeting the roof of a new factory under construction at Whaley Road, Barugh, Barnsley. The scaffolding at the roof edge did not comply with the requirements for collective fall protection and the man was able to slide between the scaffolding and the roof surface. As a result, he fell 25 feet, breaking his arm and sustaining facial injuries.

HSE Inspector David Bradley said: "On this occasion the roofer is lucky to be alive, although he has sustained significant damage to his arm and has not worked since the incident. The standards required for roof edge protection are clearly defined in the Regulations and straightforward to implement. The construction industry is one of the country's biggest, employing over two million people. It is also one of the most dangerous, with 34 of the 72 worker deaths in 2007/8 resulting from a fall from height.

"On top of this, over 4,000 major injuries such as broken bones or fractured skulls are reported to HSE every year by the construction industry, half of them involving falls from height, which are easily preventable."

Notes to editors

1. Regulation 8(a) of The Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: the top guard-rail or other similar means of protection shall be at least 950 millimetres or, in the case of such means of protection already fixed at the coming into force of these Regulations, at least 910 millimetres above the edge from which any person is liable to fall;
   1. toe-boards shall be suitable and sufficient to prevent the fall of any person, or any material or object, from any place of work; and
   2. any intermediate guard-rail or similar means of protection shall be positioned so that any gap between it and other means of protection does not exceed 470 millimetres.
2. The maximum penalty that can be imposed in the Crown Court under this offence is unlimited.

Further information and guidance on working from height, is available by visiting http://www.hse.gov.uk/falls/shatteredlives.htm

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