JCB sales company fined after worker injured by extractor wheel

Alison Fava

A family run business has been fined after the wheel of an excavator being handled manually fell and injured an employee at a site in Port Talbot.

Holt JCB Limited, a privately run family business with over 30 years’ experience selling JCB equipment and after sales services, was ordered to pay £67,000 with cost of £2,929.70, following the incident in April 2016.

Swansea Magistrates Court heard how an apprentice was tasked with changing air filled wheels with foam wheels on a machine intended to be used on a recycling site.

The wheel weighed more than 400kg. The incident left the man with broken bones in both feet.

HSE investigators found the company:

• did not have any handling equipment for wheels
• the manual handling operation was not assessed
• workers were not trained in how to handle the wheels.

Holt JCB Limited of Third Way, Bristol pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 4(1) of the Manual Handling Regulations 1992.

Speaking after the hearing HSE inspector Steve Richardson said: “This incident could have been prevented if the company had used a mechanical wheel handler costing less than £700.

“Measures such as this would have been apparent had the task been properly assessed.”

Related Topics