Timbercraft Windows & Doors Limited, which also manufactures wooden conservatories, was visited by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on three occasions over a 12-year period.
Those visits, to the company’s workshop on Severalls Industrial Park in Colchester, identified large build-ups of wood dust around machinery as well as other health and safety breaches. These included workers not being provided with suitable respiratory protective equipment (RPE).
A subsequent HSE investigation found the company failed to adequately control and prevent its employee’s exposure to wood dust in the following ways:
inadequate local exhaust ventilation (LEV) and a failure to have its LEV thoroughly examined and tested within the preceding 14 months;
failure to have employees face fit tested for their RPE;
common dry sweeping of wood dust;
using compressed air lines for clearing of wood dust from machines;
using incorrect L class vacuums; and
failure to have employees who were exposed to wood dust under health surveillance.
Following the December 2022 inspection, three improvement notices were served relating to control of wood dust. A further improvement notice was served relating to arrangements for monitoring, guarding and other protection devices on machinery.
Each visit by HSE inspectors during the past 12 years had resulted in improvement notices being issued, along with other action taken. However, despite this, the company still failed to act, including to provide its workers with suitable RPE.
Timbercraft Windows & Doors Limited, of Crowborough East Sussex, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 9(2), 11(1) and 7(1) of Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002.
The company was fined £4,000 and was ordered to pay £2,792 costs at a hearing at Colchester Magistrates Court on the 16 of January 2025.
To read the full prosecution: Repeated wood dust failures lands company with fine – HSE Media Centre
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