Company fined £167,000 for several health and safety failures

A waste and recycling company has been fined for multiple health and safety failures following visits from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

During the visit the HSE inspectors found that there was no segregation between pedestrians and vehicles, pedestrians were forced to use the vehicular entrance to the site, and vehicles were being driven freely around the site. The visual traffic plan that the company had in place was not available to staff or visitors and was out of date. Within the site skips were pilled three high in an area regularly accessed by workers and risked collapse.

The HSE visited the site again 11 days later after serving multiple improvement notices, however found that the company had previously been served with prohibition notices relating to stock piling which it had now breaches.

The company pleaded guilty to failing to fulfil duties under Section 2 and Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 by putting employees, agency workers and other persons on site at risk of death and/or serious personal injury and two offences under s33(1)(a) of the Act.