Developer in court after shopworkers cheat death following building collapse

Date:

25 May 2012

Release No:

Y&H/100/12

A Sheffield property developer has been fined for dangerous safety failings after a building partly collapsed and sent tonnes of rubble through a neighbouring shop roof - just missing two shopworkers.

The building after the gable end collapsed, with the roof structure missing from the left hand side

Developer Ghulam Rasul put the lives of the workers and of the local community at serious risk when he deliberated flouted a legal enforcement notice ordering him to halt all demolition work at the site because the building was potentially unstable.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) brought the prosecution after investigating the incident at Steetley Chambers, a former industrial premises, between Stoke Street and Effingham Road in Sheffield, on 4 February last year.

Sheffield Magistrates heard today (25 May) that HSE found Mr Rasul restarted demolition work on the site in late 2010, breaching a Prohibition Notice served on him in April 2008 relating to serious safety concerns. By doing so, the building was weakened further, increasing its instability and the potential for a collapse, and putting anyone near it at serous risk of injury.

On 4 February, the gable end of the two-storey building did collapse. Around ten tonnes of brick and rubble crashed through the roof of the fishing tackle shop next door, which was open for business, and narrowly missed the shopworkers.

South Yorkshire Police closed Effingham Road as they were concerned the remainder of the building would collapse across the road and pavement. A team from Sheffield City Council's dangerous structures unit then arranged for the structure to be safely demolished.

Ghulam Rasul, of Balfour Road, Sheffield, pleaded guilty to an offence under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and to breaching a Prohibition Notice. He was fined a total of £6,000 and ordered to pay £2,418 in costs.

Inspector Dave Bradley, from HSE's Construction Division, said he was astonished there had not been fatal or serious casualties.

Speaking after the hearing, he said:

"This was an extremely serious incident with the potential to kill several people in the shop as well as pedestrians and people in cars on Effingham Road at the time. The fact that no one was injured was pure good fortune.

"It was an entirely avoidable incident. Had Mr Rasul employed a competent engineer, temporary supports could have been designed and installed to prevent a premature collapse of the structure. He had been warned of the dangers, advised on what to do and yet he recklessly ignored this advice and by doing so put the lives of many people at risk.

"Demolition is a high-risk activity that needs to be carefully planned - from start to finish - to ensure it doesn't result in the uncontrolled collapse of a building or parts of it. The controls needed are well known in the industry and the costs involved are not prohibitively expensive when balanced against the risks."

There were 50 deaths and more than 8,200 injuries in the construction industry according to the latest figures from HSE.

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. Regulation 28(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 states: 'All practicable steps shall be taken, where necessary to prevent danger to any person, to ensure that any new or existing structure or any part of such structure which may become unstable or in a temporary state of weakness or instability due to the carrying out of construction work does not collapse.'
3. Section 33(1)g of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 makes it an offence for a person 'to contravene any requirement or prohibition imposed by an improvement notice or a prohibition notice (including any such notice as modified on appeal).'

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