HSE Prosecution: £6million fine given to Council after three fatal incidents

A local council has been fined £6million for safety failures relating to its guided busway, a purpose-built track exclusively for buses to bypass traffic congestion, after three people died after being hit by buses on the network.

This is one of the highest safety fines on record and surely the highest handed down to a public body. A risk for local authorities is that their often ‘very’ large turnover can lead to fines often belying their actual financial resources.

Culpability and harm were both deemed to be high with the sentencing aggravated by a failure to properly assess risks or make improvements following a litany of previous incidents and enforcement. A reminder that enduring breaches (time) and failures to learn lessons (knowledge) are always two hallmarks of cases leading to the highest sentences, which could have reached nearly £10m here in the absence of the reduction for a guilty plea.