Groundworks firm get lucrative deal

AN engineering firm fined £600,000 following the death of a seven-yearold boy at a Barnsley construction site have secured a multi-million pound contract for more work in the town.

Conley Thompson was reported missing to police on July 26,

2015 when he didn’t return to his Worsbrough home after playing with his friends.

Despite extensive search efforts, Conley was not located that night but the following morning he was found dead inside a 23-cm-wide plastic pipe on a building site, off Bank End Road.

The site belonged to Leeds-based construction firm Howard Civil Engineering.

They pleaded guilty to two safety-related charges and were fined £600,000 – reduced from £950,000 due to their early guilty plea – in August this year.

The firm has now been awarded a contract to deliver a £2.8m groundworks scheme at the ‘mammoth’ Gateway 36 site on the former Rockingham Colliery.