Contractor with ‘total disregard’ for safety fined £150,000

A contractor and an architecture firm have been fined a total of £170,000 after a HSE inspectors found a catalogue of health and safety breaches on a botched care home extension.

Coast & Country Construction and Paul Humphries Architects were both found to have committed serious breaches of their health and safety duties.

Exeter magistrates’ court heard that, in early 2016, a concern was raised about the lack of health and safety controls at a large timber frame extension being built onto Manor Lodge Residential Home in Exmouth.

On 1 March 2016, inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited the site.

They found uncontrolled high-risk activities that put workers at risk of death, serious injuries or ill health. The risks included falls from height, fire, slips and trips and poorly controlled wood dust.

The inspection also found there was a "total disregard" for health and safety and site management. In particular, there was a risk of fire spread associated with the construction of a timber frame extension adjoining an existing building.

The inspectors concluded that 80 physically and/or mentally impaired residents of the home were put at risk of injury or death due to the possibility of fire spreading into the home.

The subsequent investigation by the HSE found that the work was not properly planned, nor appropriately supervised or carried out in a safe manner.

Coast & Country Construction Limited (formerly known as Make a Loft a Home) as the principal contractor, had a duty to control how the work was carried out and to ensure that the work would be completed safely. The timber frame extension work was designed by Paul Humphries Architects, which the HSE said failed to perform its duties as the principal designer and failed to consider the risk of fire spread to the vulnerable residents.

Coast & Country Construction of Concord Road, Exmouth did not attend court but was found guilty in its absence of two breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. It was fined £150,000 and ordered to pay costs of £6,039, although the company is now in liquidation.

Paul Humphries Architects of Salterton Road, Exmouth pleaded guilty to two breaches of the Construction (Design and Management) Regs 2015, and have been fined £20,000 and ordered to pay costs of £6,039.

HSE inspector Nicole Buchanan said: "Those in control of work have a responsibility to devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers in the safe system of working.

"Companies should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take enforcement action against those that fail to control workplace risks appropriately."