Developer fined for unsafe site management

A Lancashire property developer has been convicted for violating health and safety legislation after it failed to act on a series of warnings over poor security and a lack of systems for managing site traffic.

Chelford Properties Ltd of Balmoral House was fined £6,000 and ordered to pay £4,500 costs after pleading guilty to two charges at Blackpool magistrates' court.

The company failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that only authorised people were allowed onto its construction site, and also failed to organise the site to allow the safe movement of pedestrians and vehicles.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited the site in February 2007, after the police alerted it to the concerns of local residents about the poor state of the boundary fence and children getting onto the site. In addition, the safety body found that people walking around the site were in danger from construction vehicles.

HSE inspectors had previously served four improvement notices for similar failings on other sites under the company's control. The company's own health and safety consultants had also warned it on a number of occasions that improvements needed to be made at the Warbreck Gardens site.

Inspector Alasdair Green said: “This is a company that has repeatedly put the safety of both the public and its own workforce at risk by not securing sites and by failing to manage pedestrian and vehicle movements.

“Construction bosses have a duty of care to ensure that their sites are operated in a safe way and to prevent members of the public from gaining access. Putting these matters right was neither expensive or technically difficult.”