Firm fined for breaches of asbestos safety regulations
UNSKILLED AND UNPROTECTED LABOURERS PUT IN DANGER
UNSKILLED, untrained and unprotected labourers were used to pull down asbestos ceiling tiles with claw hammers at a series of Hessle Road shops.
MS Properties (Northern) Ltd, Bradford, has been fined for safety breaches after its employees were exposed to asbestos on March 22, 2019, when removing more than 1,000sqm of the false ceiling tiles.
Beverley Magistrates’ Court heard that the company had not commissioned a refurbishment asbestos survey prior to the work commencing on the shop conversion at 309-315 Hessle Road, Hull.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that around 20 tradesman die each week as a result of past exposure to the deadly material, which can cause serious diseases when inhaled as fibres from the air.
An investigation by the HSE found that MS Properties (Northern) Ltd’s directors, and the casual labourers they employed, spent approximately three to four weeks removing the suspended ceiling, along with the ceiling tiles which contained asbestos, to install new stud walls to divide the shop floor into separate units.
The unskilled and untrained labourers were provided with a claw hammer to knock the tiles down. The asbestos-containing tile debris was then shovelled or collected into approximately 62 one-tonne bags.
Employees removed more than 1,000m2 of asbestos insulation board (AIB) ceiling tiles in an uncontrolled manner, exposing them to the deadly fibres.
Asbestos exposure kills around 5,000 workers each year, this is more than the number of people killed on the road.
However, asbestos is not just a problem of the past. It can be present today in any building built or refurbished before the year 2000.
When materials that contain asbestos are disturbed or damaged, fibres are released into the air and when these fibres are inhaled they can cause serious diseases.
These diseases, which include fatal lung diseases and a specific type of cancer, often take a long time to develop, but once diagnosed, it is often too late to do anything.
MS Properties (Northern) Limited of Beckside Business, Beckside Road, Bradford, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 5 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.
The company was fined £16,000, ordered to pay £3,011.87 in costs and a victim surcharge of £190.
After the hearing, HSE inspector Trisha Elvy said: “If the company had identified any asbestos on the site through a refurbishment asbestos survey, carried out by a competent surveyor, and had it removed by licenced asbestos removal contractors prior to the refurbishment work commencing, then MS Properties (Northern) employees would not have been exposed to asbestos.
“No matter how small or large your company, there is a need to prevent exposing your employees and the public to asbestos by ensuring that it is identified on site prior to any work commencing.”