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School and glass contractor fined for asbestos failings
A Birmingham academy and a glass company have been fined for
failing to properly manage refurbishment works and exposing workers
to asbestos.
The incident cost the school £20,000 through decontamination and
replacement of floor coverings. Soft furnishings and children's
work had to be disposed of and parts of the school could not be
used for the second part of the summer term.
After the hearing HSE inspector Paul Thompson said:
"This incident would have been avoided had the academy put
procedures in place to ensure that relevant parties understood
their duties around minimising the risk of asbestos exposure inside
the school.
"Although the school had not been under local authority control
since 2011, it failed to ensure employees and management received
adequate training to make up for the loss of local authority
support and ensure that a suitable asbestos management plan was in
place.
"By not providing asbestos awareness training to their
operatives and not taking steps to ensure that they had information
on where asbestos was in the premises before works commenced,
Birmingham Glass Services Ltd failed in their duty to protect their
employees and members of the public from potential exposure to
asbestos.
"Workers exposed to asbestos could have posed a health risk to
others in the long term, even their families and loved ones, by
taking home their contaminated clothing.
"Asbestos is the single greatest cause of work-related deaths in
the UK. Building owners and contractors have a duty to ensure they
protect their workers from risk of exposure. Equitas Academies
Trust and Birmingham Glass Services Ltd failed to do so."
Information and advice about working safely with asbestos can be
found on the HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos
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