A construction company in Essex has been fined for putting their employees at risk by neglecting and not sufficiently maintaining some potentially dangerous lifting equipment.
Aveley Construction Ltd were fined last month after Basildon Magistrates’ Court heard how a forklift truck belonging to the company was used at their South Ockendon premises for over 12 months without any sort of thorough examination to check that the equipment was safe.
By law, any company that owns such equipment must carry out thorough checks on it at least once a year, however, according to the HSE, the truck was not checked for well over a year, despite being used heavily on the premises and showing obvious signs of deterioration.
An investigation was carried out by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in June 2011 and found that when the truck was examined, just six of the twenty-four items required in the report were marked “satisfactory”.
Aveley Construction Limited was fined a total of £3,000 and ordered to pay costs of £3,238 after they admitted to breaching the Lifting Operations & Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 and Provision & Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
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