Building firms fined £17,000 after scaffolding in city collapses

Mar 14 2009 by Nick McCarthy, Birmingham Mail

TWO building firms have been ordered to pay nearly £17,000 in fines and costs for breaching health and safety laws when a huge scaffolding tower collapsed in Birmingham city centre.

Miraculously, no one was hurt when the five-storey tower collapsed in Needless Alley two weeks before Christmas 2006.

The fall sent shards of glass into offices opposite and scaffold poles tumbling down to the busy pedestrian cut through at 6.40pm on December 13.

Surrey-based SGB Services Ltd was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £6,000 costs by Birmingham Magistrates after it admitted attaching scaffolding to the building with 15 ties; they should have used 23.