13.10.2008

Lift Shaft Fall Costs Council over £50,000

A school teacher acting as stage manager for a production at the Urdd Eisteddfod in May 2007 stepped backwards on stage and fell 2.5 metres into an open lift shaft, sustaining multiple injuries. Investigation established that the lift at Carmarthen's Lyric Theatre was defective and that no safety barriers and board were in place at the time, even though it was not in use.

Carmarthenshire County Council, owners of the theatre, admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Lifting operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) 1998 for which it was fined a total of £45,000 with costs of £7,712.

An HSE inspector commented:-

"Our investigation showed that whilst the council has a corporate health and safety policy, the system in place at the theatre was extremely informal, with no written system in place, and reliant heavily on employee experience and common sense. This was an obvious risk for a theatre space and the simple systems needed to prevent incidents such as these should have been in place."