05 February 2010
Lucie Ponting

A construction firm has been fined £20,000 after a cherry picker fell over in a busy city street when a concealed manhole cover collapsed underneath it. The vehicle’s operator suffered serious injuries to his skull, back and legs and the falling machine put passing members of the public at risk.

York-based Shepherd Construction was the principal contractor building an 11-storey shopping, car parking and accommodation complex at Trinity Square in Nottingham. The injured man, who worked for a firm sub-contracted to install glass louvres, was working around 48-feet up in the air on 30 August 2007 using a cherry picker to inspect louvres installed the previous day. As he reversed the vehicle to get a better look and then drove it forward again, a concealed manhole cover gave way under the machine’s weight.

When the reaching arm of the cherry picker subsequently crashed to the ground, it landed in a busy area occupied by pedestrians, buses and taxis just seconds before. Following the incident, Milton Street in central Nottingham was blocked off for almost six hours.

HSE inspector Martin Giles told HSP that the manhole had been in the pavement for many years, but as part of the work to make the ground suitable it had been covered with a layer of road stone, so it was not visible to the operator.

He said Shepherd, as the PC, had failed to put in place adequate measures to find and record where manholes and service covers were around the site. It had then failed to protect the covers properly or to prevent vehicles driving over them.

On 3 February, Nottingham magistrates fined Shepherd £20,000 plus £6900 costs after it admitted failing to protect the safety of its contractors and the public, contrary to Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Categories:
Construction, Work at height, Risk assessment, Prosecutions, Enforcement (prosecutions)

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