UK Construction and Law

Floor built off the manufacturer's design and loaded with blocks gave way under a bricklayer, and the principal contractor was fined £30,000

By Staff Writer  |  19 August 2026

A 25 year old bricklayer working on the upper level of a house in Oldham fell when the floor beneath him collapsed, taking the concrete blocks stored on it with him. He spent a month in hospital. The regulator found the floor had not been built to the manufacturer's design, and that the site also had unsafe scaffolding, inadequate work at height arrangements, no fire alarms and no competent site management.

Oldham Business and Construction Management Limited, of Bath Street, Oldham, pleaded guilty to breaching regulation 13(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. It was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £4,883 in costs, to be paid within three years, at Warrington Magistrates' Court on 11 August 2026. The Health and Safety Executive published the outcome on 18 August 2026.

The accident happened on 4 June 2024 at a house under construction on Lynn Street, Oldham. The bricklayer was working on the upper level when the floor he was standing on gave way. He fell with multiple concrete blocks that had been stored on the upper floor and sustained fractures to his right leg, hip and left hand. He required surgery and a month long stay in hospital.

Two failures, one collapse

The investigation identified both halves of the problem. The floor had been overloaded with concrete blocks. It had also not been constructed in accordance with the manufacturer's design. Either on its own is a defect. Together they remove whatever margin the designed system carried, and the outcome was the one the arithmetic predicts.

This incident was entirely foreseeable and could have been prevented had the floor been constructed in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions and safe systems of work been in place to ensure it was not overloaded with construction materials.

Karen Farley, inspector, Health and Safety Executive

The charge went to regulation 13(1), which requires the principal contractor to plan, manage and monitor the construction phase and to coordinate it so that the work is carried out without risks to health or safety, so far as is reasonably practicable. It is the provision that fits a site where the deficiency is an absence of arrangements rather than one identifiable act, and the inspector's account describes exactly that. She said the injuries were the consequence of fundamental failures to manage health and safety, and that the investigation revealed not an isolated failing but a broader pattern of poor standards across the site.

What else the inspectors found

Beyond the collapse, the investigation identified unsafe scaffolding, inadequate arrangements for work at height, a lack of fire alarms and inadequate competent site management. Multiple enforcement notices were issued as a result. That list is worth reading as a set rather than as separate items: a site without competent management is the condition in which a floor gets built off design and then used as a storage deck without anybody asking what it was designed to carry.

The point that transfers to other projects is the load path. A manufactured floor system is designed for a stated imposed load in service, and a stack of blocks placed on it during construction is a temporary condition that the permanent design was never asked about. Where the deck doubles as a materials store, the loading needs to be checked against the design and the placing needs to be controlled, which means a decision about where materials go and a person whose job it is to enforce it.

The regulator's position is that effective management of health and safety is fundamental to delivering a construction project, and that a principal contractor must plan, manage and monitor the construction phase, ensure effective preventive and protective measures are in place, and provide appropriate supervision. The prosecution was brought by the regulator's own enforcement lawyer and paralegal officer.