An Altrincham building company has been fined £40,000 for a series of safety failings including a near-miss involving building blocks that had “the potential to cause serious injury or even death”.
Altin Homes Limited was in charge of all construction on the site of the former petrol station on Woodlands Road in Altrincham.
The mixed-use scheme is now complete and includes four houses, three apartments and a new 4,000 sq ft company office.
But during the build, in June 2014, the site came to the Health and Safety Executive’s attention following the collapse of building blocks across the pavement and cycle lane on Woodlands Road.
When HSE investigated the collapse of building blocks it was noted that there were other poorly stored blocks on site which were at risk of crashing through the hoarding for a second time. The company was told to remove them as soon as possible to reduce this risk.
The HSE inspector served two Prohibition Notices and two Improvement Notices, along with a Notification of Contravention during the first site visits.
Trafford Magistrates’ Court heard that some of the issues had been satisfactorily dealt with by Altin Homes following HSE’s first intervention but on a second visit a fortnight later, they had failed to remove the unsafe blocks which had caused the original incident. The HSE said that “in essence they had ignored the recommendations of the inspector and had put their own workers and members of the public at continual risk”.
Altin Homes was charged with failing to protect the safety of their employees, failure to protect the safety of others including subcontractors and members of the public and one count of failing to plan, manage and monitor construction work so that it was carried out in a safe manner.
The company pleaded guilty at Trafford Magistrates Court and was fined £40,000 with £3,000 costs.
HSE inspector Matt Greenly said: “Altin Homes Limited failed in their duty to protect their workers, subcontractors and members of the public passing by this site from a foreseeable risk of serious harm.
“Luckily no one was injured when the blocks fell through the site hoarding but, given the size and weight of the building blocks that fell onto the pavement and highway, there was the potential to cause serious injury or even death to both employees and the general public. It was nothing other than good fortune that no pedestrians were passing along the pavement when the blocks fell.”
