Company Fined Over Failings

An accidents at work expert at Irwin Mitchell has demanded that firms in the haulage sector do everything possible to promote health and safety among their staff.

The issue has been placed in the spotlight after Huntly-based partnership Harpers Transport was fined £8,000 for a range of failures identified by Health and Safety Executive inspectors during a visit to its Stirling site.

It was revealed that equipment used to transport waste was unsafe, while loading had been carried out in an unstable manner that left employees at risk of workplace injury.

Further investigations revealed that such work had not been risk assessed adequately by Harpers Transport, while staff were also not trained on such duties to the correct standard.

Elaine Russell, a workplace injury expert at Irwin Mitchell’s Glasgow office, said: “A fine of this kind will hopefully set an example to firms in the haulage sector as to how seriously the issue of health and safety is taken by authorities.

“Workers need to be trained to the correct level for all tasks they perform, while they also must be provided with the right tools and equipment to complete their jobs in the safest possible manner.

“Problems of this kind must become a thing of the past and I hope that this case will lead to improvements that will prevent future mistakes being made.”