Wirral Council fined £6,000 by the HSE after an outdoor-stored stepladder collapsed, leaving a worker with broken ribs and a fractured collarbone.
Wirral Council has been fined £6,000 by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after a worker suffered serious injuries when a stepladder collapsed. The incident left the employee with broken ribs and a fractured collarbone. An HSE investigation revealed that the ladder used during the work had been stored outside, leading to significant deterioration in its condition. Despite its visible poor state, the ladder remained accessible to staff, who had not received adequate training on how to inspect height-access equipment before use.
This prosecution serves as a stark reminder of the legal obligations surrounding work at height. Falls from height consistently rank as the single biggest cause of workplace fatalities and major injuries across the UK construction and maintenance sectors. The HSE's latest enforcement figures highlight that failure to maintain equipment and a lack of pre-use checks remain widespread issues, leading directly to preventable structural failures of basic access kit.
For tradespeople purchasing access equipment from merchants like Screwfix, Toolstation, or Travis Perkins, this ruling underscores the importance of buying commercial-grade kit and looking after it properly. While trade-rated EN131 ladders are designed for heavy daily use, no ladder is built to withstand prolonged, unprotected outdoor storage. Uncovered exposure to rain, frost, and UV light rapidly degrades fibreglass stiles, corrodes aluminum rivets, and rots wooden components. Buying a high-quality ladder is only half the equation; tradespeople must factor in the cost of proper storage accessories, such as van roof-rack clamps or weatherproof storage brackets. Furthermore, sole traders and site managers alike must implement routine pre-use checks rather than assuming a ladder is safe simply because it is on hand.
Reported by HSE — original article
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