December 14, 2016 10.28 am
This story is over 67 months old
Long Bennington firm fined £45k after worker’s leg crushed by steel beams
A Long Bennington company has admitted failures in its health and safety training after a worker’s leg was crushed by steel beams. Losberger UK was fined £25,000, ordered to pay costs of £20,374.86 and a £175 surcharge, after pleading guilty to contravening the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. An employee at the events…
A Long Bennington company has admitted failures in its health and safety training after a worker’s leg was crushed by steel beams.
Losberger UK was fined £25,000, ordered to pay costs of £20,374.86 and a £175 surcharge, after pleading guilty to contravening the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
An employee at the events structure firm suffered a broken a leg when a 41 stone structure landed on him earlier this year.
Lincoln Magistrates’ Court heard on December 9 the beams had been returned to site at their Long Bennington base on July 11 last year from an external event.
The victim was one of two staff moving the beams into their storage position when the incident occurred. He had not been trained to do this.
The arc beams were aimed to be placed on the top rack of a cantilever rack system and loaded onto two racks underneath with a fork lift truck.
Its straps were cut by the victim allowing the two beams to land on his leg, snapping his tibia and fibula.
Prosecutors said the firm’s high turnover of staff led to initial health and safety briefings for staff only being verbal and superficial.
Staff who stayed at the firm longer than three months then received further training.
The victim had been employed with the firm a few weeks when the incident occurred.
A foreman who left the firm days before the incident also described in an interview the firm’s health and safety protocol “as an accident waiting to happen.”
Losberger UK admitted liability for the incident and that the employee should never have been tasked with the work by a supervisor.
The firm said it had spent £80,000 on health and safety since the accident.
District Judge Peter Veits said: “It’s clear the company greatly regret what happened. It was arguably because of poor management at the site in an operation the victim said he never had training of.
“There were failures in training methods and inductions were scant to say the least. It fell short of the standard required. The senior member of staff should never have placed the victim with the task.
“A number of workers were exposed and other members of staff could have been put at risk.”
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Lincolnshire residents are already feeling the impact of the rise in energy bills, which could soar to over £4,000 next year, with some saying they will just cancel their direct debits.
Energy bills for a typical household could hit £4,266 next year, experts warned. The higher estimate means the average household would be paying £550 a month, instead of £164 a month currently.
Two Lincolnshire MPs said they are pleased with the support being offered by the government so far, while a third sounded the alarm for extra support.
This comes after Cornwall Insight criticised regulator Ofgem’s decision to change the price cap every three months instead of six, as higher wholesale prices are also forecast. However, Ofgem said no forecast for next year could be “robust” at this stage and had “limited value”, according to the BBC.
In May, a £400 energy bill support was announced which was calculated on the basis of Ofgem’s prediction at the time that the price cap was likely to rise to £2,800, but experts now believe this will be higher. Here’s an explainer on how to access the energy grant here.
The Don’t Pay UK movement is demanding a reduction in energy bills to an affordable level, saying: “We will cancel our direct debt from October 1, if we are ignored. We will take this action if pledges reach one million by then.”
This sentiment was echoed by The Lincolnite readers, including Laura Jayne Coupland who said: “I will just cancel my direct debit because it’s an absolute joke. It’s about time the government intervened properly, if you care about the people and the economy so much, why are you allowing it? Let me guess, you will benefit from it.”
Kayleigh Dawson said: “I’ve cancelled my energy direct debits and will pay monthly what I can afford to. I’m more conscious on how much money I’m spending on outgoings and limiting them where possible.
“But, in complete honesty, who is not worried about the ever rising cost of just living and surviving? We shouldn’t be going from being comfortable to scraping by because those in powerful positions want second and third homes.”
Karl Anders said: “People seem to have no spare cash nowadays. My print business has gone from £108k during the pandemic to £5k this year. On top of this, we’ll probably be paying £300-£400 a month energy soon based on already thrifty usage.
“I don’t think many people understand how bad it’s going to get with food price rises, etc. There is a “I’ll put a jumper on” mentality currently, which will soon be shattered in October.”
Michael Basford said: “You do what our grandparents did, you cut your cloth. Our grandparents generation were amazing and very pragmatic when it came to making a little go far.
“Make do and mend as my grandmother use to say. So people should be planning for the worst case scenario now, not when it’s here and then too late. Own it.”
Peter Sykes said: “It’ll impact me by not using my heating. Probably not being able to pay my bills. Not able to buy food. Probably lead to a lot of people needlessly dying.”
Karen Price said: “Just had a bill for gas and lecky just under £3k for 8 months! British Gas put an estimate on the bill saying it will be just under £6k for 12 months next year.
“I’m not holding my breath for the October increases and tied myself in to a fixed not variable.
“Since my last supplier went bankrupt and it’s taken oven 8 months for British Gas to get us fully swapped over, it’s already increased tariff twice.
“Five years ago I was paying under £160 per month for both utilities. £2k per year, it’s now getting beyond a joke, considering three family members no longer live at home.
Ady Brodrick said: “Rising costs are a terrible thing for people, however with a change in lifestyle and some education the cost could be reduced. Sometimes it is situations like this that makes us change.”
Dennis Murray said: “Not quite sure how all this happened, except for a bit of rumouring. The country is definitely not going to survive under the current charges.
“Businesses are going to go to the wall, people on low wages are going to end up on full-time benefits, the countries tax recipes will collapse.
“There WILL be anarchy on our streets, people who have never demonstrate will now do it, crime will increase, people will cancel house, car, life, home insurance because they will not be able to afford it.
“Pensioners and other vulnerable people will turn their heating down, and some will die. Transport and personal cars will be a no no. I could go on and on. But this is reality, and what we are facing if something is not done now.”
Lincolnshire County Councillor Colin Davie said there were challenging times ahead for people on low incomes due to rising energy costs and political instability.
He said successive governments “of all colours” had “simply failed the British public on energy”.
“They haven’t planned, they haven’t invested, they haven’t built the infrastructure. So rising energy costs, which we should have been protected, are now absolutely under the whims of other people.”
He said there needed to be a balanced energy mix including solar, nuclear, wind, but that the current infrastructure was disconnected and “not secure”.
And he warned it was only going to get worse with reserves from Norway drying up and other countries having to make drastic changes over how much they export.
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