{"id":7930,"date":"2025-09-19T08:46:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T08:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/?p=7930"},"modified":"2025-09-19T08:46:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T08:46:34","slug":"retaining-wall-collapse-kills-builder-on-school-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/retaining-wall-collapse-kills-builder-on-school-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Retaining wall collapse kills builder on school site"},"content":{"rendered":"

A leading South West contractor has been fined after an employee was crushed to death when a 1.8m high retaining wall collapsed onto him.<\/p>\n

Gary Anstey, 57, from Bristol, was working for H. Mealing & Sons Limited at a construction site at a school in Bath when the incident happened on 19 March 2019.<\/p>\n

An HSE investigation found that H. Mealing & Sons Limited failed to properly plan and supervise the construction of the retaining wall at Swainswick School. This led to it becoming unstable when a large load of aggregate was placed against the incomplete wall which was not supported.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

HSE guidance requires that any temporary structure must be designed and installed to withstand any loads placed against it and that it is used in accordance with its design.<\/p>\n

This includes ensuring appropriately trained operatives are provided with a suitable written design and plan to install to ensure the structure remains stable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The collapsed wall<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In a victim personal statement, Gary\u2019s wife Anne Anstey, said: \u201cGary\u2019s workplace should have been a safe place to work \u2013 he should have come home as he always did \u2013 and now he hasn\u2019t been here to celebrate all the family milestones and that is something that we as a family have to live with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

She added: \u201cGary was 57 years old when he died. He was always full of life and he had recently become a grandad for the first time. He has missed Scarlett grow up into a funny loving girl and missed out on the celebration of Scott and his wife buying their first house, all the children starting school and many other milestones in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mealing & Sons Limited of Bath pleaded guilty to safety breaches and was fined \u00a356,775 and ordered to pay \u00a344,000 in costs at Taunton Magistrates\u2019 Court.<\/p>\n

HSE inspector Ian Whittles said: \u201cThis was a horrific incident which had heartbreaking consequences.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIt happened because of a lack of planning and coordination, which is all too common in construction activity. With simple clear procedures and appropriate training this incident would not have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Aggregate at the construction site in Bath<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

from Construction Enquirer https:\/\/ift.tt\/BePmypT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A leading South West contractor has been fined after an employee was crushed to death when a 1.8m high retaining wall collapsed onto him. Gary Anstey, 57, from Bristol, was working for H. Mealing & Sons Limited at a construction site at a school in Bath when the incident happened on 19 March 2019. An […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":147,"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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-7930","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\/7930","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=7930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7931,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7930\/revisions\/7931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}