{"id":4992,"date":"2019-04-16T13:27:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T13:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/?p=4992"},"modified":"2019-04-16T13:27:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T13:27:21","slug":"boy-12-falls-from-scaffold-ladder-on-poorly-guarded-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/boy-12-falls-from-scaffold-ladder-on-poorly-guarded-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Boy, 12, falls from scaffold ladder on poorly guarded site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contractor Westdale Services Limited has been fined \u00a3160,000 after a 12-year-old boy slipped off a scaffold ladder on an inadequately guarded site.<\/p>\n

Cardiff Magistrates\u2019 Court heard how, on 6 May 2017, two boys were able to climb the rungs of a ladder within scaffolding erected by Westdale Services at Southville Flats in Cwmbran by placing their feet either side of a ladder guard that did not cover the rungs completely.<\/p>\n

One boy climbed to the top platform of the scaffold and climbed the uppermost ladder to a height of approximately 10 metres.<\/p>\n

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The ladder slipped, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground inflicting life-changing injuries requiring multiple operations.<\/p>\n

The boy now has no bladder or bowel control and is only able to walk short distances due to being unstable on his feet.<\/p>\n

An HSE investigation found the security arrangements for preventing access to the scaffolding, especially by children from a nearby school, were inadequate.<\/p>\n

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Westdale Services Limited of Askern, Doncaster pleaded guilty to safety breaches and was fined \u00a3160,000 and ordered to pay \u00a322,310 in costs.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Michael Batt said: \u201cThe death or injury of a child is particularly tragic and a lot of thought must go into securing construction sites.<\/p>\n

“Children do not perceive danger as adults do. The potential for unauthorised access to construction sites must be carefully risk assessed and effective controls put in place.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis incident could have been prevented by removal of the ladder completely or installing an appropriately sized ladder guard to cover the full width of the rungs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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from Construction Enquirer http:\/\/bit.ly\/2UC7CxX<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contractor Westdale Services Limited has been fined \u00a3160,000 after a 12-year-old boy slipped off a scaffold ladder on an inadequately guarded site. Cardiff Magistrates\u2019 Court heard how, on 6 May 2017, two boys were able to climb the rungs of a ladder within scaffolding erected by Westdale Services at Southville Flats in Cwmbran by placing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-4992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-construction-enquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4992"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4993,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992\/revisions\/4993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}