While the company was fined £20,000, its 77-year-old director and site manager was fined just £10.

The prosecution followed a visit by Health & Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors to a site on London Road in Alderley Edge where an old bank was being converted into offices.

The HSE visited the site on 9th October 2020 and found many health and safety failings, including several areas where workers could have fallen from height, a risk of exposure to hazardous substances, and inadequate welfare facilities.

The company doing the work, Daniel Taylor Builder & Architectural Woodworker Limited, was served with three prohibition notices prohibiting unsafe activities and five Improvement notices requiring the company to take remedial action to comply with the law.

The HSE investigation then found that the firm had previously been the subject of enforcement action relating to unsafe work at height at both its construction sites and joinery workshop. The investigation also found that company director David Taylor, aged 77, was acting as site manager and had failed to ensure the necessary health and safety measures were implemented, despite previous HSE interventions.

Daniel Taylor Builder & Architectural Woodworker Limited, of Wheelwrights Yard, Congleton, Cheshire, pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The company was fined £20,000 following its early guilty plea, and ordered to pay £1,507.71 in costs at South Cheshire Magistrates’ Court on 8th February 2023.

David William Taylor, of New Road, Congleton, Cheshire, pleaded guilty to breaching section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Mr Taylor, aged 77, was fined £10 by the district judge taking into account totality of sentencing this defendant as a director of the company, his early guilty plea, positive references and his cooperation with HSE enforcement action. He was ordered to pay £1,507.71 in costs.

HSE inspector Sinead Martin said: “This type of proactive prosecution will highlight to the construction industry that HSE will not hesitate to prosecute companies for repeated breaches of the law. Good management of health and safety on site is crucial to the successful delivery of a construction project and principal contractors have an important role in managing the risks of construction work and ensuring that safety measures are implemented.”

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