Piping company ordered to pay £30,000 for worker injury
A Lincolnshire-based manufacturer of plastic piping used in the
construction industry is facing more than £30,000 in fines and cost
after being found culpable of health and safety breaches that
resulted in the injury of a worker.
Polypipe, which operates out of Horncastle, admitted at Skegness
Magistrates Court to breaches of the Work at Height Regulations,
which resulted in the incident in June 2009. A Polypipe employee
had been working on top of a lorry, loading up plastic piping, when
he was hit by a forklift truck. The worker had to be immediately
hospitalised, suffering from severely broken ribs.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) immediately launched an
investigation into the case, which found that Polypipe had failed
to ensure proper planning of the work or that it was carried out
safely.
The company was fined £20,000 for the incident, and ordered to
pay £5,000 to the worker and £4,700 in costs.
Speaking after the case, HSE inspector, Emma Madeley, said that
the incident had been completely avoidable and resulted from a
"fundamentally unsafe" working system at Polypipe.
"There should have been a system for loading that didn't involve
unsafe work at height and employees should have been provided with
a safe method of getting back down to the ground," she said.