Waste Company Fined After Unsafe Skip Stockpiling and Poor Traffic Management

Brief Summary

HSE found multiple health and safety failures at a South East London waste and recycling site, including skips stacked three high in areas accessed by workers and poor pedestrian and vehicle segregation. The employer had served improvement notices and had previously been subject to enforcement for similar risks, yet it still put people at risk of death or serious injury.

What Was The Incident?

During an HSE inspection in August 2022, inspectors saw vehicles such as tipper lorries and loading shovels moving around the yard with no effective segregation between pedestrians and vehicles. The pedestrian entrance was locked, forcing people to use the same route as vehicles. Although a visual traffic plan existed, it was not visible to staff or visitors and had not been updated after site layout changes, including movements to toilets. Inspectors also found skips unsafely stacked, some deformed, with stacks three high in places. The height and instability increased the risk of collapse or falling, and skips were located in an area regularly accessed by workers on foot or by vehicles.

What Was The Outcome?

The employer was prosecuted for failing to comply with legal duties to protect persons on site. It pleaded guilty to two offences. It was fined £167,000 and ordered to pay £16,195 in costs at a hearing in May 2026.

Key Points To Consider

Keep pedestrians and vehicles properly separated. Organise site transport so pedestrians have safe routes and crossing points, rather than being forced to share vehicle routes, especially where large vehicles operate and reversing may be required.

Ensure traffic plans are visible and current. A traffic plan is not effective if staff and visitors cannot see it or if it is out of date following changes to site layout, including routes to welfare facilities.

Control skip storage to prevent collapse and falling objects. Where skips are heavy and can collapse, stacking arrangements must be safe and stable, and deformed skips must be addressed rather than left in serviceable storage patterns.

Avoid placing hazardous stored items in high footfall areas. Do not store potentially unstable items where workers pass regularly on foot or by vehicle, because this places people directly in the line of risk if an item falls.

Act quickly and learn from prior enforcement. Improvement notices require timely corrective action, and previous enforcement on similar issues is a clear warning that the underlying control measures are not yet secure.

HSE Prosecution Link