Norland Managed Services and Balfour Beatty fined for contractor's death

Two companies, Norland Managed Services and Balfour Beatty, have been fined a total of £380,000 by the British courts following the electrocution and death of a contractor.

The man in question, 27-year-old cable jointer Martin Walton, was working at the Morgan Stanley data center in London. He accidentally managed to come into contact with a 415V live terminal and died. This happened in 2010, while Walton was employed by Integrated Cable Services Ltd and contracted by Balfour Beatty.

The reason for the death was ruled as a management mistake. The work being carried out involved adding a new uninterruptible power supply to the data center. Norland Managed Services was the company in charge of the mechanical and electrical systems there, control that was handed to Balfour Beatty while the work was carried out.

The HSE, having assessed what caused the accident, found that no one involved understood fully what work was being carried out. This led to Mr Walton working next to a live cable without knowing it was live. This was not the fault of the contractor, but that of the two principal companies involved: Balfour Beatty and Norland.

The fine relates to breaching two sections of the Health and Safety Work Act. Balfour Beatty must pay £280,000 and Norland pays the other £100,000.

Datacenter Dynamics

Armac Group “Clock Off” at Pinderfields Hospital

Over the last twelve months C&D customer Armac Group have been demolishing the former hospital at Pinderfields in Wakefield and have worked progressively through the hospital buildings demolishing and, in some cases, carefully dismantling sections for preservation and reuse on the new development.

When the bulk of the work was complete they were then given the difficult task of carefully lifting the clock tower and storing it for reuse.

Balfour Beatty Construction Limited Pinderfields Joint Venture wanted to preserve the clock for resiting in the new development so quite a lot of lateral thinking was needed to achieve their wishes.

Armac directors Adrian McLean and Noel McLean were involved in the lift with the original concept and lift design by Adrian. The roles of Appointed Person and Lift Supervisor being carried out by Noel.

We have no photographs of the work being carried out but we do have some nice video footage so please take the time to watch the video below.

Tameside Hospital Stamford building reduced to rubble

The 1905 Stamford building at Tameside Hospital is being demolished with great care using a nibbler.

According to Gilian Parker, director of facilities for the hospital, care and attention was required for this job:

"The days of swinging a ball and chain through a building like this are long gone.''

This will be a carefully managed, painstaking process which will be carried out by our partners at Balfour Beatty and their Demolition Contractor; Armac, using a piece of machinery known as a nibbler.''

As the name suggests, the building will be demolished piece by piece.''

That makes it much safer and means we will be able to recycle as much as possible as the weeks go on."

The Health Improvement in Tameside project will see the building replaced with a 400 car parking area for patients and visitors. The work is being carried out by Armac Group and Balfour Beatty.

Source: Armac Group

Armac save roof slates on a Balfour Beatty project at Burnage, Manchester

Armac Operations Director Adrian McLean MIDE has continued with his regular donations to local charities by donating several thousand roof tiles to Burnage School for use on their out of bounds school roof.

The tiles are being removed from the Burnage project for Balfour Beatty Construction Northern who have completed the building of a new school on the site before Armac moved into demolish the old school.

The contract is one of several won by Armac from Balfour Beatty in the north of England where they are midway through their Schools for the Future programme.

The Armac commitment to the Balfour Beatty Zero Harm safety initiative was a major factor in the winning of this work.