A concerned member of the public contacted the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) with photographs showing workers removing tiles from the roof with no precautions in place to prevent them falling up to six metres to the ground below.
An HSE inspector got the photos on 7th January 2014 and went straight to the site in Windsor that day. When he saw the dangers first hand, he slapped an immediate enforcement notice on AG Edwards & Son Demolition Ltd. The notice prohibited any further work at height until adequate safety measures were in place to protect the two workmen on site.
Reading Magistrates’ Court was told that AG Edwards & Son had put the two men in danger by failing to plan the removal of the tiles to recognised standards. It also failed to manage or monitor the roof work, leading to the workers being exposed to a totally unnecessary risk of falling.
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AG Edwards & Son Demolition Ltd, of Oxford Road, Windsor, Berks, was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay £1,053 in costs after admitting a breach of the Work at Height Regulations.
Following the hearing, HSE inspector Dominic Goacher said: “AG Edwards & Son put the lives at risk of two workers by carrying out this demolition job in a totally unsafe manner. Anyone falling from the roof of that disused pub would likely be killed and that type of disregard for safety is totally unacceptable.
“The company failed to follow basic safety precautions and heed the freely available guidance available. Had the work been planned correctly, suitable protection such as a scaffold, a fully-guarded platform and edge protection would have been in place.”
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