MB Mills fined £3,000 for working at heights breach

Michael Mills, trading as MB Mills General Contractors, has been fined £3,000 at Bedford Magistrates' Court for a breach of the Work at Height Regulations (WAHR) 2005.

On 13 April 2005, seven days after the regulations came into force, three employees of Michael Mills, of Cambridge, arrived at a site to salvage tiles from a building prior to demolition. 

The employees used an unsecured ladder to access a pitched roof and started to strip the roof even though no risk assessment had been undertaken and no provision had been made for them to work safely at height. 

No scaffold had been provided, roof ladders were not in use and the employees created holes in the close boarding to use as footholds.

HSE investigating inspector Stephen Hartley said: "Employers are expected to plan work at height carefully and take appropriate measures to prevent falls.  Where standards are poor HSE will prosecute those responsible, even if there has been no injury as in this case."