The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has fined a Warrington-based plant hire company after a worker from Kent fell to his death on site.

In August 2006, 55-year-old Philip Pearce from the Medway area had been working as a fitter at the company’s depot at Tovil in Maidstone for less than three months.

The company – Ashtead Plant Hire Co Ltd, trading as APlant – provides portable accommodation units to the construction industry.

Mr Pearce’s job was involved preparing the accommodation units, including site huts, welfare units and storage containers, which were then hired out to construction companies.

Mr Pearce climbed onto the top of a stack of two units positioned on top of each other to help attach lifting chains so that the top unit could be lifted down. He fell more than five metres and died at the scene of the accident.

HSE investigators found that, while Ashtead Plant Hire Co Ltd had a written procedure for work on top of accommodation units in its depots and at customers’ sites, the company had failed to follow its own health and safety guidelines for work at height. This required employees to wear a safety harness and inertia reel line and climb a secured ladder. If they slipped or fell, the line would lock and prevent a serious fall. 

The HSE investigation also found that workers at the depot had not been issued with the safety kit – or been trained to use it. Most of the workers did not know the company had a special procedure for doing this type of work, investigators discovered.

Despite the depot handling up to 15 accommodation unit movements a day, management at the depot did not ensure that workers were aware of the procedure – and did not ensure that the work was only done by those who had been trained, equipped and authorised to carry it out.

On Tuesday (13/04/10) at Maidstone Crown Court, Ashtead Plant Hire Co Ltd – based at Dalton Ave in Birchwood Park, Warrington – admitted breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £200,000 and ordered to pay £15,698.30 costs.

After the hearing, HSE inspector John Underwood called the accident ‘wholly avoidable’ – and added that the incident had led to ‘a tragic and totally unnecessary loss of life’.

‘It is completely inexcusable that the company had identified the risks, prepared an adequate procedure to manage the risk, and then failed to implement that procedure to protect their workers,’ said Mr Underwood.

‘Health and safety is not just about filling in forms or thinking about risk – it’s about taking action to prevent people being killed or injured while trying to do their job.

‘I hope this case will be an example to other companies that not only must health and safety be taken seriously but also followed through,’ he added.

For more information about how to prevent slips, trips and falls from height in the workplace, go to www.hse.gov.uk/shatteredlives.   

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