Romag Ltd, which is based in Sunderland,
was fined £20,000 with costs of £12,638 at a hearing in Consett Magistrates
Court on October 14th, after it was found that it had ignored its
safety advisers' recommendations to arrange emergency clean up and prevent
access to a contaminated area.
While no win no fee solicitors Lancaster
see a lot of asbestos contamination issues, the contamination in this workplace
was very sizable. The court was told that two subcontractors drilled through
asbestos insulation boards on July 12th 2011 after being told that
the building did not contain asbestos. The subcontractors then hoovered up the
asbestos dust and any other debris with a domestic vacuum cleaner, with this
same vacuum later used to clean up other parts of the premises. This spread the
asbestos throughout the workplace.
Although the asbestos disturbance was
noticed on July 13th, the court heard Romag Ltd did not take
appropriate remedial action until nine days after the incident. This is despite
the fact that the firm's own health and safety advisers recommended that the
company lock down the area, cordon it off, and arrange an air clearance test
and emergency asbestos clean-up.
This delay caused 16 visitors and 180
workers to potentially become exposed to asbestos fibers, which could cause
these individuals to develop asbestos's, pleural plaques, mesothelioma or lung
cancer in the years or decades to come. Personal injury solicitors Lancaster
hope the level of exposure was very small, but any level of asbestos exposure
is too much, and the company appears to have acted in a surprisingly negligent
fashion.
All buildings built before 2000 could
contain asbestos fibers and any company working on the fabric of these
buildings should check whether or not the substance is present in the building
before work begins. However, Romag Ltd did not just fail to do an asbestos test
- it compounded the failure through its inadequate clean up operations.
