09 June 2009
Jocelyn Dorrell

Construction firm Bouygues (UK) must pay more than £180,000 in fines and costs over the death of an employee who was hit by a reversing site vehicle - bringing to more than £205,000 its total bill for safety breaches in the space of a week.

The employee had been crossing a one-way vehicular traffic route when he was struck and killed in June 2005.

The incident happened at Eastbury School in Barking, East London, where Bouygues was building extra teaching accommodation.

The worker was carrying materials across the designated vehicle route when a reversing vehicle ran into him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

HSE inspector Sandy Carmichael said better training and planning would help reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by moving site traffic. "But equally, if not more important," she said, " is that managers and directors make sure that someone is checking that control measures are in place and being used."

London-based Bouygues (UK) admitted failing to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of employees and others, contrary to Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. On 8 June at Snaresbrook Crown Court, the company was fined £160,000 and ordered to pay £21,698 costs.

Bouygues (UK), a major subsidiary of the Bouygues Construction group, specialises in PFI (private finance initiative) and PPP (public-private partnership) design-and-build contracts, and in 2005 had a turnover of £100 million.

Last week Bouygues was fined £18,000 with £2796 costs after a carpenter suffered serious injuries when he fell five metres over a guard rail during the construction of a school in Waltham Forest. The company was ordered to pay the injured man £5000 compensation.

Categories:
Construction, Enforcement (prosecutions), Prosecutions, Enforcement (prosecutions), Workplace transport



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