Heating company failed to prevent a fall

Date:

31 May 2011

Release No:

SCO/070/11

A Livingston heating company has been fined £2,000 for breaking the work at height regulations.

Workers for Eaga Scotland Limited were replacing the central heating system at a house in Bruce Street, Aberdeen on 29 September 2010 and cut holes in the floor to carry out the work. But the company failed to ensure that safety measures were put in place to prevent its workers from being able to fall into the holes and sustain injuries.

Eaga Scotland Limited, of Oakbank Park, Livingston, pleaded guilty to breaching the Work at Height Regulations 2005, Regulation 6(3), at Banff Sheriff Court.

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. Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states that "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."

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