Health and Safety

The National Grid has been fined £3.2m and a contractor more than £90,000 after a pylon worker was left with life-changing injuries from a huge electric shock. During the accident at Treforest Industrial Estate in Pontypridd on 3 December 2020, worker Justin Hollins received an electric shock of 33,000 volts.…

An MP has written to the new policing minister about the “insulting” delay in concluding the investigation into the Didcot Power Station collapse. Labour’s representative for Rotherham, Sarah Champion, asked Diana Johnson to clarify when the probe would be concluded, and to comment on the impact of the delay on…

A groundworks firm has been fined £75,000 following an accident in which a site worker was killed after a trench wall collapsed. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said Derek Caddie, 44, died when an excavation wall fell at a site in Glasgow on 25 November 2019. He was working…

The Westminster government is hoping that thousands of builders will take part in a potentially life-saving health-check programme. The so-called health MoT, which already exists for those aged over 40 and who are not already known to be suffering from cardiovascular conditions, involves weighing and measuring participants, as well as…

All four companies served with warning notices by the nuclear regulator over fire-safety failures at Hinkley Point C have now made the improvements required of them, it has been announced. The four firms were served with the notices in relation to fire safety at the under-construction nuclear plant in January.…

A builder has been given a 26-week suspended sentence after workers accessed a scaffold that was not erected properly. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found David Beadle allowed workers to use the scaffold on at least three occasions. According to an HSE statement, he failed to…

Police are investigating a fire at a Taylor Wimpey construction site in Kent last weekend, during which building materials caught fire. Fire crews received reports of a fire at the housebuilder’s Shorncliffe Heights development in Folkestone at around 8.30pm on Saturday. Three fire engines arrived shortly after and put out…

A coroner has issued a warning to road workers not to urinate between the rear axles of large goods vehicles (LGVs) following a fatal accident in Dorset.  Thomas McAuley was part of a six-person crew undertaking road resurfacing work for Kiely Brothers Ltd in Redwood Drive, Ferndown, when he died…

Balfour Beatty has become the first major contractor to mandate human-recognition cameras on large plant, in an effort to cut site deaths. The system uses cameras attached to machine ‘blind spots’ and AI software trained on images of humans to detect when someone is near heavy machinery, and then alerts…

An engineering firm has been fined after a worker suffered a fractured skull and multiple other injuries while working at an HS2 site in Hertfordshire. The mechanical engineer, employed by EMC Elite Engineering Services, was repairing a conveyor at the site on Chalfont Lane, West Hyde, when he fell 11…