10th August 2022

Carpentry and joinery company fined £200,000

A midlands carpentry and joinery company has been fined £200,000 after a man cleaning office windows from an unsecured stillage on the forks of a fork-lift truck fell 3.5 metres to the ground. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the company failed to identify that using a stillage to lift someone on the forks of a forklift truck, a method that they had used before, was unsafe.  There was a lack of training for employees on the dangers of working at height without the proper equipment and there were no systems of work or risk assessments in place.

9th August 2022

DEFRA consults on improvements to WCs

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs is consulting updating toilet specifications to stop cistern water from re-entering drinking water in properties and to understand the causes of leaking toilet valves. Consultation closes 3rd October. https://consult.defra.gov.uk/drinking-water-quality/wc-suite-performance-specifications/

8th August 2022

Republic of Ireland RI 2022/404

RI 2022/404.  European Union (Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases) Regulations 2022.  Published 28th July. These Regulations implement in The Republic of Ireland of Regulation (EU) No. 517/2014 on fluorinated greenhouse gases.  They revoke the European Union (Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases) Regulations 2016 (RI 2016/658) as amende

8th August 2022

Construction company fined £600k

A South Yorkshire civil engineering company has been fined £600,000 after a seven-year-old boy died on a construction site.  HSE found that there was insufficient fencing in place to prevent unauthorised persons from accessing the site, a housing development adjacent to exiting properties, due to a combination of poor planning, management and monitoring of the site and its perimeter.