GHA Coaches has had its recent £250k fine for repeatedly failing to comply with Health & Safety Executive (HSE) legal notices to get its lifting equipment examined, reduced to £90k – CBW can confirm.
CBW began investigating in the wake of the original story (CBW1244) in which North Wales’ largest independent operator, GHA Coaches Limited, claimed the case was being reheard – and at the time, HSE was unable to confirm that this was the case prior to publication.
As this issue went to press, HSE had not implicitly stated on the relevant news page on its website that the original, widely-reported fine has been reduced – the government safety watchdog has only updated the relevant sections of text.
Asked by CBW to clarify the position, the HSE replied: “This was not an appeal. The original sentencing was called back in by the court, so the fine has not been reduced – the original fine didn’t stand. The reason for this was that concerns were raised that sentencing guidelines were not properly applied. It was initially listed in and heard at Wrexham Magistrates Court on June 7. The hearing was moved to Mold to be heard before the District Judge on June 28.”
Responding to CBW’s invitation to comment, Stephen Bryce, General Manager at GHA Coaches said: “The company is deeply remorseful and embarrassed by this incident and, although there were failings in some sets of lifting equipment having the correct LOLER (Lifting Operations & Lifting Equipment Regulations) certification, there were other systems in place to ensure the safety of the equipment in question. The company has now reviewed its H&S procedures and stresses that the safety of both its employees and the public is paramount. Although we would not want to play down the seriousness of this fine, we would like to make it clear that the investigation by the HSE was not prompted by any incident or injury and the failure was limited to just one of our sites.”
