Companies fined for cable strike failings

Two North East companies have been fined after workers were exposed to danger of electrocution when a digger struck an underground cable.

Hexham-based Egger (UK) Ltd and Northern Construction Solutions Ltd, of Chester-le-Street, were both prosecuted today (25 March) by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for failings with the management of groundworks.

Newcastle Magistrates’ Court was told that the cable strike occurred on 19 March 2013 during work being undertaken for Egger’s subsidiary company, Campact Ltd, on Egger’s Hexham site. The groundworks and civil engineering works were sub-contracted to Northern Construction Solutions Ltd.

On the day of the incident two workers, engaged on behalf of Northern Construction Solutions, were asked to excavate the area in front of a newly-built electric substation for the installation of drainage. During the work the bucket of an excavator came into contact with a 20kV underground electric cable.

Both workers avoided injury, but it was a serious incident that warranted an HSE investigation.

Inspectors found that Egger was responsible for the provision of a services diagram that included the location of underground electric cables, and was also responsible for keeping it updated.

However, they failed to update this diagram following the earlier construction of the substation and re-routing of the electric cables. Consequently Northern Construction Solutions was not provided with up-to-date information regarding the location of the cables.

The court heard that although it was the duty of Egger to provide Northern Construction Solutions with appropriate information regarding the location of electric cables, the contractors equally had a duty to provide workers under their control with the information they needed. Instead, they accepted the out-of-date services diagram, even though they knew there had been changes made in the area to be excavated. NEBOSH Construction Certificate