£20,000 fine after four hurt in floor collapse

Prosecutions and Claims |
28.01.2008

A construction firm has been fined £20,000 for safety failures which led to four workers being seriously injured when the floor they were working on collapsed.

The accident happened in May 2003 at an Excelcare Developments site in Bromley, where a four-floor residential home for the elderly was under construction.

For three days workers had used a crane to unload concrete blocks and beams at the back of the development. On the third day they began to lift blocks onto the second floor, which was under construction.

Shortly after a second load had been lowered onto the floor it collapsed, bringing with it the first and ground floors. The four workers who had been on the second floor when it gave way came down with the rubble, landing in the basement. They had to be pulled out by the fire brigade and suffered various injuries including spinal fractures, fractured ribs and cuts.

HSE inspector Amanda Huff told HSP the accident was the result of a lack of planning. "There were all these blocks arriving," she said, "and they were loading them onto the floor because they had nowhere else to put them. Nobody sat down and thought, 'how are we going to do this properly?'"

Firms often use specialist contractors to lay floors but Excelcare decided to do the work themselves, and the man in charge had little experience.

"This was an avoidable accident," said Huff. "These floors are laid all the time, every day - you just don't overload the floor. There's a code of practice and they broke every rule going."

Excelcare Developments pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 8(1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations and Regulations 6(1) and 9(1) of the Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations.

On 21 January at the Old Bailey, the firm was fined £20,000 with costs of £7500.

The code of practice for the safe installation of precast concrete flooring is available by clicking here.