Edgware contractor prosecuted after workers put at risk

Date:

27 June 2012

Release No:

HSE-EAST -86

An Edgware contractor has been fined after the routine inspection of a construction site discovered dangerous working conditions.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Inspectors saw contractors working some three metres above ground without measures in place to prevent them from falling. HSE visited the construction site at Sun Street, Waltham Abbey, Essex on 10 February 2011, as part of its annual proactive targeted programme of construction site inspections.

A Prohibition Notice was immediately served on the Principal Contractor Mr Isidor Cata, of Colchester Road, Edgware, Middlesex, preventing further work at height until adequate safeguards were in place.

In a prosecution brought by HSE (26 June), Chelmsford Magistrates' Court heard that a follow-up inspection of the site later the same day, found working at height was still continuing, but no measures had been taken to comply with the Prohibition Notice.

Mr Isidor Cata, 48, trading as Doru Construction, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and Section 33(1)(g) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £2,000, and ordered to pay costs of £1,500.

Speaking after the hearing HSE inspector, David King, said:

"Last year 50 construction workers died following incidents on sites, with work at height being the largest factor in this. Therefore it is essential that everybody involved in the construction industry takes appropriate action to manage work at height safely, and other major hazards on their site, to prevent needless injury and loss of life."

Information on health and safety for the construction sector is available on HSE's website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/

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.
2. Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, Section 33(1)(G) states: "it is an offence to contravene any requirement or prohibition imposed by an improvement notice or a prohibition notice (including any such notice as modified on appeal) be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health & safety."
3. The Work at Height Regulations 2005, Regulation 6(3) requires dutyholders to ensure where work is carried out at height, that suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury are taken.

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