Haulage partnership fined after safety breaches

Date:

1 March 2011

Release No:

SCO/023/11

A Huntly-based haulage partnership has been fined £8,000 for health and safety failures at its site in Stirling.

Harpers Transport, which specialises in timber haulage and wood recycling, was prosecuted after inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) attended at the firm's site at Cowie, near Stirling.

Following an investigation, the HSE inspectors discovered that a trailer used to transport waste chipboard between yards at the site was in a poor state of repair and unsafe. They also found that the trailer had been loaded with chipboard in an unstable configuration, placing employees at risk of injury.

It was also found that the task of loading, storage and unloading of the trailer with chipboard, despite being carried out by staff at the site regularly, had not been adequately risk assessed by the firm, that a safe system of work had not been in place for employees to follow and that those employees had not been adequately trained.

Harpers Transport, North Road Industrial Estate, Insch, Aberdeenshire, pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined a total of £8,000 today at Stirling Sheriff's Court.

After the case, HSE Inspector Karen Moran said:

"Moving wood around the site was part of the company's regular work, so they should have ensured that the equipment they were using was safe. The trailer that was used was in such a poor condition that it was not suitable for this task.

"Harpers Transport failed in its legal duty to ensure that clear hazards such as this are identified and measures put in place to manage the risk. This includes making sure that equipment is maintained in a condition to carry out the work safely and that workers are trained in the correct procedures.

"These were basic safety failings but the sad fact is that these simple problems can and do cause serious and life-changing injuries."

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. In Scotland the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has sole responsibility for the raising of criminal proceedings for breaches of health and safety legislation.
3. Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."
4. Accidents involving transport at work are among the biggest causes of workplace fatalities. In 2009/10 a total of 41 workers died and more than 5,150 were injured across Great Britain as a result of being struck by a vehicle, falling from a vehicle, being hit by materials falling from a vehicle, being hit against a vehicle while travelling in it or as a result of a vehicle collapsing or overturning.

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