£20,000 to pay in asbestos case

8:31am Thursday 24th May 2007

A FIRM has to pay nearly £20,000 in fines and costs for smashing sheets of asbestos cement at a demolition site.

Wye Valley Demolition Ltd admitted two charges of breaching asbestos controls brought by the Health and Safety Executive.

Hereford magistrates heard last Friday that in June, 2004, as an old grain store at Bodenham was being torn down, asbestos cement sheets which should have been removed under controlled conditions were instead smashed to the ground by a machine and then spread over the site.

The bench fined Wye Valley Demolition £3,000 on each charge and ordered the company to pays costs of £13,621,49 - a total of £19,621.49.