South Yorkshire firm a ‘serial safety offender’
Meadow Bank Vac Alloys, a Rotherham-based metals business, has been fined for repeatedly risking workers lives by making them use dangerous machines
Health and Safety Executive Inspector told the Sheffield Crown Court, on the 17 March 2015, that Meadow Bank Vac Alloys allowed employees to operate vehicles and plant with Category “A” defects that were immediately dangerous and continued to keep the machines in use even after being specifically prohibited from doing so by the HSE.
The HSE attended the company premises following a complaint, which identified concern about the condition of the firms’ vehicles. The HSE Inspectors, at the end of May 2012, served twenty enforcement notices, covering a multitude of safety and health risks ranging from improvements needed to a variety of plant and lifting machines to the provision of basic welfare facilities for staff.
The HSE inspectors undertook a further four site inspections between May and early August 2012 with additional enforcement notices issued. These included seven, which banned the use of three forklift trucks, three mechanical grabs and a loading shovel that had no brakes. All had category A defects, identified by an independent engineer.
The HSE inspectors granted numerous extensions of time to allow Meadowbank Vac Alloys to comply with the enforcement notices. However, the HSE inspectors identified that on two occasions in July and August, prohibited machines were still being used. None of the defects had been rectified and again the company director was informed specifically what was needed for the notices to be complied with. During the last inspection, in October 2012, HSE inspectors found that the dangerous loading shovel still in use and with some 80 hours’ working time clocked up when it should have been idle.
In total 31 notices were served between 29 May and Aug 2012 identifying 57 safety breaches.
Meadowbank Vac Alloys, of Harrison Road, Rotherham, was fined a total of £36,000 and ordered to pay £36,000 toward prosecution costs after pleading guilty to a single breach of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998; and multiple breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 974, three relating to Prohibition Notices and two for offences of non-compliance with Improvement Notices.
- Regulation 5 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states: “Every employer shall ensure that work equipment is maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.”
- Section 21 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 states: “If an inspector is of the opinion that a person (a) is contravening one or more of the relevant statutory provisions; or (b) has contravened one or more of those provisions in circumstances that make it likely that the contravention will continue or be repeated, he may serve on him a notice (in this Part referred to as “an improvement notice”) stating that he is of that opinion, specifying the provision or provisions as to which he is of that opinion, giving particulars of the reasons why he is of that opinion, and requiring that person to remedy the contravention or, as the case may be, the matters occasioning it within such period as may be specified in the notice.”
- Section 22 of the same Act states: “Where an activity involves, or will involve, a risk of serious personal injury, health and safety inspectors may serve a prohibition notice prohibiting the activity immediately or after a specified time period, and not allowing it to be resumed until remedial action has been taken. The notice will explain why the action is necessary.”
Road construction firms sentenced after road worker loses arm
Three construction firms have been fined for serious safety failings, after a worker lost his arm when it became trapped in poorly-guarded machinery during a road surfacing operation in Hertfordshire.
On 8 March 2012 a 53-year old road worker was preparing a chip spreader – a machine used to scatter stone chips on asphalt – for resurfacing works on the A1001 in Hatfield when his left arm became caught in the machine’s rotating auger, causing serious injuries. Shortly after the incident, the injured arm required amputating and the person has been unable to return to work since.
Amey LG Ltd, Lafarge Aggregates Ltd (acting as Amey Lafarge, a joint venture in charge of the operation) and Ashmac Construction Ltd, were prosecuted by the HSE at Watford Magistrates’ Court on 25 March 2015.
HSE investigator identified a series of safety failings on the part of all three companies. In order to prepare the chip spreader for use, the worker placed on the site by Ashmac Construction Ltd started the machine and the rotation of its internal auger. During the operation of setting the machine up for use his arm became entangled in dangerous moving parts. HSE inspectors found that the worker was not formally trained in the use of the spreader, and his colleagues were only given one evening to familiarise themselves with the machine by Amey Lafarge when they started work on site six months before the incident.
Amey Lafarge did not provide the workers with any instruction or training in how to operate the machine safely, including how to secure guards, whilst also not issuing workers with a copy of the operator’s manual for the machine. There was no safe system of work in place to ensure that the machine was set up and operated properly and that its use was restricted to those who were trained. The Amey Lafarge risk assessment and a site-specific method statement did not reflect the reality of the controls in place for the use of the chip spreader and described a different type of chip spreader than the one used on site.
Ashmac Construction Ltd did not take reasonably practicable steps to ensure the workers that it placed on site had received appropriate information, instruction and training in the safe use of the chipper they were operating.
Amey LG Ltd, of the Sherard Building, Edmund Halley Road, Oxford, was fined £150,015 and ordered to pay costs of £18,000 after pleading guilty to one breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
Lafarge Aggregates Ltd, of Portland House, Bickenhill Lane, Solihull, Birmingham, was fined £175,015 and ordered to pay costs of £18,000 after pleading guilty to one breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
Ashmac Construction Ltd of Pavilion Court, Pavilion Drive, Northampton, was fined £30,015 and ordered to pay costs of £18,000 after pleading guilty to a breach of section 3(1) the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
- Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 states: “It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.”
Firm in court after workers’ narrow escape in explosion
A West Yorkshire firm has been fined for safety breaches after its factory was damaged when an industrial oven exploded only minutes after workers had left the area. Around a dozen employees working the night shift at Flexitallic Ltd’s factory in Cleckheaton were taken to hospital, after the explosion on 4 March 2013. All employees where discharged after being examined.
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigators found a series of failures that contributed to the sudden explosion.
HSE Inspectors told Huddersfield Magistrates (10 march 2015 ) that the oven was used to ‘bake’ gasket sheets as part of the production process. This required components to be mixed with a flammable paraffin, formed into sheets and then thoroughly dried to drive off the flammable solvent before being put into a 360 degree oven.
On the evening of the incident, night shift workers had followed instructions left by the day shift manager to transfer a pack of the sheets that had been left in the dryer into the sinter oven. One operative opened the dryer doors and his colleague used a forklift to load the pack and transfer it to the oven. He then started the oven’s cycle and the two men left the oven room. Ten minutes later, the oven exploded violently, causing extensive damage to the room and punching a massive hole through the roof above, part of which collapsed.
The night shift operators believed that the drier had completed its work, and loaded the pack into a still-hot oven unaware the sheets were only partially dry. The flammable vapours ignited as they made contact with the electrical heating elements, causing a flashover and then a flashback into the main oven chamber, which exploded with the pressure.
HSE’s investigators identified that Flexitallic had developed a process with a separate drying operation to ensure the sheets were fully dry before going into the oven. However, critical instrumentation on the drier were allowed to fail and not repaired, causing the dryer to cut out and the shut itself down prematurely.
Flexitallic Ltd of Scandinavia Mill, Hunsworth Lane, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £1,588 in costs after pleading guilty to a breach of Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
- Section 2(1) 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.”
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