A CONSTRUCTION company in Dodworth has been fined £5,000 after metal sheets crashed through a karting track roof – narrowly missing members of the public.
KSMT Ltd, of Fall Bank Industrial Estate, Dodworth, was also ordered to pay £500 costs and a £500 victim surcharge after pleading guilty to a single breach of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.
The incident happened in April last year at The Raceway on the Park Lane Trading Estate, Oldbury where KSMT Ltd had been employed to overclad the roof.
Sandwell Magistrates' Court heard on Wednesday a subcontractor had lifted new metal roof sheets, which weighed three quarters of a tonne, on to the roof using the forks of a telehandler.
But, the sheets and one of the forks fell off and through the existing corrugated roof before crashing through a raised section of the kart track inside and coming to rest on the lower section of track.
Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Gareth Langston said: "This case shows the importance of properly planning lifting operations and highlights the duty of the principal contractor on a site to manage their subcontractors."
