Solar panel firm fined for worker fall in Hampshire

Date:

7 March 2013

Release No:

SE/TBC/13

A Dorset company specialising in the installation of solar panels has been fined for safety failings after a worker fell from a roof in Hampshire.

The Gendex Limited employee, who does not wish to be named, stepped through a rooflight at the New Milton and District Community Centre, on Osborne Road, New Milton.

He fell three more than metres into the centre in the incident on 17 February 2012 before landing on a raised platform. This broke his fall and he managed to escape uninjured.

Southampton Magistrates' Court heard today (7 March) that Gendex was installing 68 solar panels on the flat roof of the building over three days.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) established that a scissor lift had been provided for employees to access the roof, as were safety harnesses and training. However, the harnesses could only be used in the lift because there were no attachment points on the roof itself.

HSE also found that no protection had been provided for either the edge of the roof or the two rooflights that were present.

Magistrates were told the company had decided it was sufficient to merely warn employees about the potential fall risks rather than install any safety measures that may have damaged the roof fabric. Scaffolding was also ruled out as a very last resort.

The court also heard that Gendex was served with a Prohibition Notice by HSE in March 2006 relating to unsafe ladder work. So the company, which also does cavity wall insulation, was fully aware of the need to carefully control and manage all work at height.

Gendex Limited, of Bridge House, Court Road, Swanage, was fined a total of £13,000 and ordered to pay £2,477 in costs after pleading guilty to two separate breaches of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

After the hearing, HSE inspector Adam Wycherley said:

"Work at height is inherently fraught with risk, and falls remain the single biggest cause of deaths and serious injury in the construction industry.

"Thankfully the worker avoided injury on this occasion, but he was extremely fortunate to do so. The fall was entirely preventable and Gendex Ltd has no excuse for failing to do more than they did to mitigate the risks he and others faced.

"Roof work must be properly planned and appropriate safety equipment provided."

The latest HSE statistics show that 40 workers were killed and more than 3,400 were seriously injured in falls from height in 2011/12. Further information on safe working at height can be found online at www.hse.gov.uk/falls

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 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: "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."
3. Regulation 9(2)(a) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: "Where it is not reasonably practicable to carry out work safely and under appropriate ergonomic conditions without passing across or near, or working on, from or near, a fragile surface, every employer shall (a) ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that suitable and sufficient platforms, coverings, guard rails or similar means of support or protection are provided and used so that any foreseeable loading is supported by such supports or borne by such protection."

Press enquiries

Regional reporters should call the appropriate Regional News Network press office.

Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by the Regional News Network