A construction company in Hampshire has been fined £80k after a worker fell more than 15 feet through a fragile skylight during roof repair work.
The 29-year-old sub-contractor sustained multiple fractures when he fell at The Tanneries Industrial Estate in January 2024. He was unable to work for several months, and still doesn’t have full use of one leg as a result.
The company had started the roof repairs at the site in Titchfield in December 2023, but the work had been slow. To move things along, the company decided to work over the weekend of 13-14 January 2024 and took on extra workers to help, including the sub-contractor who fell.
Working at weekends is often a risk, especially when workers may already be tired from working during the week, and this must always be considered when planning.
Poor planning continued, as no edge protection was in place at the edges of the roof, and no protection was provided to prevent a fall through the fragile skylights. Because of this, the sub-contractor fell through the skylight onto the floor over 15 feet below.
Carried on the next day
Unbelievably, despite this serious incident having taken place, the company and the remaining sub-contractors returned to complete the work the next day, still with no edge or skylight protection.
It seems logical that an organisation carrying out high-risk work, such as roof work, would know what precautions to take and make sure they were in place. Unfortunately, the world is driven by profit, and profit drives rushing. As a result, we are all too ready to take the “it’ll be OK” attitude. But we need to learn that it won’t be OK just because we want it to; we have to make it OK.
Falling from a roof is an incident that is repeated over and over, year on year, hundreds of times. We need to learn from mistakes; not only our own, but those of others too. This company, and the workers involved, don’t appear to have learned anything at all.
The company was prosecuted by the HSE under the Work at Height Regulations 2005, Regulation 6(3) and fined £80,000 with £2630 costs.
The director was prosecuted under Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, s.37(1), and given a three-month suspended prison sentence, also with £2630 costs. Hopefully this will be a lesson learned for everyone. Accidents don’t just happen to other people, they can happen to anyone, unless you make sure they don’t.