Kent housing company fined £528,000

A Kent housing company has been fined £528,000 after an employee repairing a fence post inadvertently struck an underground cable, suffering burns to his face. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), found that the company often excavated the ground. However, they never provided any information to employees on the location of underground services and did not provide suitable equipment to detect and safely excavate underground services. They had previously identified the risk of underground services in a risk assessment in 2017.