One man died and two others were injured after a scaffold collapsed


View of partially collapsed working platform. Picture: HSE

St James Group, which is owned by the housing developer Berkeley, has been fined £600,000 following the death of a carpenter on one of its building sites in Putney.

The man died and two other workers were seriously injured when the platform on a ninth floor of a construction site on the Upper Richmond Road suddenly gave way beneath them on 29 October 2012

The carpenter and a steel-fixer had been standing on a temporary wooden platform above a stairwell when they fell around sixteen metres down the opening. Both men landed on the partly-constructed concrete staircase below, where the carpenter sadly sustained fatal injuries.

The steel-fixer survived the fall but was so seriously injured that it took almost 3 years for him to recover sufficiently to be able to return to work. The third man was an engineer’s assistant who was working in the stairwell on a lower level and was seriously injured by falling debris.

photo courtesy of Iyara Thai Restaurant 2012

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that similar platforms had been constructed on other floors throughout the construction site by using timber joists supported by unsuitable joist hangers with plywood fixed on top. The platforms, which were part of ‘temporary works’ were neither built to an agreed safe design, nor was the quality of the build checked by those in control of the site, even though they were crucial to the safety of workers on upper floors.

St James Group Limited, the Principal Contractor, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 22(1)(a), Construction (Design and Management) [CDM] Regulations 2007, and was fined £600,000 and ordered to pay costs of £14,935.54.

Mitchellson Formwork and Civil Engineering Limited, the contractors responsible for constructing the platforms, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 13(2), of the Construction (Design and Management) [CDM] Regulations 2007, and was fined £400,000 and ordered to pay costs of £14,935.54.

RGF Construction Limited, from Seer Green, Buckinghamshire, the site agent who assisted with managing the work, was found guilty at an earlier hearing on 4 July 2016 of breaching Regulations 13(2), and 28(2) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. The company was fined £20,000.

November 2, 2016