Waste Company Fined After Unsafe Skip Stockpiling And Poor Vehicle Pedestrian Separation

Brief Summary

HSE found multiple health and safety management failures at a waste and recycling site, including unsafe skip stockpiling and ineffective separation between pedestrians and vehicles. The employer had been subject to earlier enforcement action, yet improvements were not sufficient to prevent serious risk.

What Was The Incident?

HSE inspectors visited the site in August 2022 and found vehicles, including tipper lorries and loading shovels, moving around the yard with no effective segregation from pedestrians. The pedestrian entrance was secured, so people had to use the vehicle route used by lorries and other vehicles. Although the employer had a visual traffic plan, it was not visible to staff or visitors and was out of date because the site layout had changed. The inspectors also found skips stacked unsafely, including deformed skips, and stacked up to three high in places. This created a higher likelihood of a stack collapse or items falling, and the skips were located in an area regularly accessed by workers on foot or in vehicles.

What Was The Outcome?

The employer pleaded guilty to two offences relating to failing to fulfil duties to protect people on site from risk of death and serious personal injury. It was fined £167,000 and ordered to pay £16,195 in costs. HSE had previously served prohibition notices in 2019 relating to stockpiling and risks of collapse, and it later served improvement notices requiring action within specified timescales.

Key Points To Consider

Control vehicle and pedestrian movements properly. Do not rely on ad hoc routes. Provide safe designated pedestrian routes and crossing points so people do not have to share vehicle routes, particularly where vehicles operate freely on site.

Keep traffic management plans accurate and visible. A visual traffic plan must be visible to staff and visitors and must be updated when site layouts change, including changes that affect access routes such as paths to welfare facilities.

Prevent skip collapse through safe stacking arrangements. Treat skip stockpiling as a serious structural stability risk. Check for deformation and ensure stacking height and placement do not create a foreseeable collapse or falling object hazard.

Manage higher risk where workers pass close to stored materials. Do not place potentially unstable items in areas regularly accessed on foot or by vehicles. Storage locations should be selected to reduce exposure to falling or collapse scenarios.

Use prior enforcement as a trigger for effective change. Where earlier prohibition or similar enforcement has identified the same type of failure, action must go beyond minimal compliance. Review and improve controls to ensure the same risks do not continue to put people at serious danger.

HSE Prosecution Link