Coventry scrap yard hit by 200,000 fine

Metal recycling firm Easco (Midlands) Ltd- which was taken over by SITA last year (see letsrecycle.com story) – was fined £200,000 and ordered to pay £55,000 in costs by Coventry Crown Court for breaching section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The ruling relates to the death of Ronald Barnacle, 58, who was working as a burner at the company's site in Ibstock road in Longford, Coventry, on June 14 2005 when he was struck by a reversing skip lorry and died.

Easco (Midlands) Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching section 2 (1) of the health and safety act which states that it is the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.

Speaking after the case, Health and Safety inspector Jenny Skeldon urged scrap yard owners to protect their workers from the risks posed by vehicles.

She said: “Scrapyard owners need to ensure that they make a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the movement of vehicles and pedestrians on site and, identify and implement appropriate control measures to prevent people being struck by moving vehicles.

“In this case, particularly between March 2004 and December 2005, there were inadequate precautions in place to segregate pedestrians from vehicles, despite previous warnings from HSE at other sites within the Easco Group. Had basic health and safety precautions been observed it is most unlikely that such a fatality would have occurred,” she added.

SITA

Speaking on behalf of Easco, a SITA spokesman offered the company's condolences to Mr Barnacle's family and said that Easco accepted the ruling from Coventry Crown Court.

However, he stressed that since SITA had taken over the company it had transformed the health and safety performance of the business.

The spokesman said: “Since SITA UK took over the running of Easco in May 2007 the issues raised by the Health and Safety Executive have now been resolved. A detailed action plan to raise health and safety standards has also been implemented to help prevent a similar incident happening again.

“SITA UK works to exceptionally high standards and we will ensure that our Metals Recycling Division (formerly Easco) meets the high standards of health and safety achieved in other parts of the organisation,” he added.

HSE statistics highlight transport as the second biggest cause of work-related deaths after falls from height. Every year, around 70 people are killed in transport related accidents in the workplace and around eight of those involve fork-lift trucks.