Builder admits asbestos error (From Barry And District News)

Builder admits asbestos error

A BARRY building company has been slammed with a £4,500 fine for failing to ensure the safe disposal of asbestos from a Vale school site.

Velosward Builders' managing director Brian Henry Riseborough, of Highlight Lane, pleaded guilty to the charge and was prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work Act when he appeared in court on Friday, August 27.

Magistrates heard that as part of on-going work in Upper Cliff House in the NCH-run Headlands School site in Penarth, the company had been contracted to locate and engage a specialist to get rid of an asbestos-clad boiler and pipes.

Only companies with special asbestos-removal licences are able to carry out such work by law.

But the court heard that when the Health and Safety Executive carried out an investigation into the work, done between December 19 and 31, 2003, they discovered a sub-contractor had carried out the removal and disposal of the material not in accordance with health and safety regulations.

Nor were there proper decontamination facilities on the site and no paperwork to show that a proper air analysis of the site had been carried out after the work.

The court also heard that Riseborough, aged 58, had pleaded guilty at a previous hearing but had disputed several points in the version of events given by sub-contractor Phillip Malcolm Robinson, of Station Road, Newcastle Emlyn, whose date of birth was not known by the court.

Robinson, who did not appear at either court hearing, has also been charged under the Health and Safety at Word Act. His hearing has been adjourned until Friday, September 24.

In mitigation, Riseborough said he was guilty of a "technicality" because although he had been told the tests had been carried out in accordance with the law governing safe asbestos removal and disposal, he had not secured the proper documentation.

Magistrates fined him £4,500 and ordered him to pay £1,538.90 costs, bringing the total to £6038.90.