The Journal Online : Stockline explosion an "avoidable disaster'

News In Focus

17 July 2009

Stockline explosion an "avoidable disaster'

The inquiry into the fatal explosion at the Stockline plastics factory in Glasgow has found serious weaknesses in health and safety legislation, and a lack of effective communication between government agencies, and gas suppliers and users.

It was also critical of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for failing to appreciate the significance of buried pipe work and failing to pursue follow-up visits.

Nine people died and 33 were injured in the explosion at the factory, operated by ICL Plastics, on 11 May, 2004.

The report of the public inquiry, led by senior judge Lord Gill, said that the explosion was an "avoidable disaster", and there could be no doubt as to the cause of the blast.

In his report summary, Lord Gill said: "Nearly five years after the explosion HSE has not produced a coherent action plan to deal with underground metallic pipe work and the risk of a recurrence. While the probability of another explosion may be low, the consequences of a similar event, should it occur, may be catastrophic."

He went on to make a series of recommendations that "seek to establish a modern liquid petroleum gas safety regime to minimise the risk that such an event will recur".

In a statement, families affected by the tragedy welcomed the findings of the report and called on the Health and Safety Executive to accept that "soft touch regulation" does not work.

Following publication of the report the government at Westminster has announced that further changes will be made to strengthen the safety regime for LPG bulk installation.

At Holyrood, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "A key message of the report is that this was an avoidable disaster and that its causes are clear.

"I understand that the secretary of state for work and pensions is asking HSE to carry out a full assessment of the implications of Lord Gill's recommendations and we will support and co-operate with that work to ensure that the necessary improvements to the LPG safety regime can be made.

"I am confident that the cross border co-operation that has taken place so successfully in this matter will continue in the next stages of dealing with the recommendations."

The full report of the inquiry can be read at http://www.theiclinquiry.org/

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Charles Pullar

Monday July 27, 2009, 13:08

The Stockline Inquiry team has carried out a penetrating investigation of the circumstances that caused the devastating explosion at the Grovepark Mills in 2004 and has produced a lucid report with cogent recommendations to deal with the root causes.

In the light of the 37 visits by the HSE to the Grovepark Mills over 30-40 years, it not sufficient for the HSE’s chief executive to repeat HSE's apologies to the victims and their families that a specific intervention by HSE had not been brought to a successful conclusion; and to state that HSE has already done a great deal since the accident at ICL Plastics.

It will not be proper to rely on the HSE to carry out an internal inquiry to ensure the conditions within the HSE that explain the absence of a successful conclusion no longer exist. The select committee that investigated "The role of the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive in regulating workplace health and safety" (HC 246) should undertake or commission an investigation.

This investigation should also consider if the true root causes of the accident lay in the factory's long record of breaching safety rules and cutting corners to save money and the Government's Health and Safety Executive for failing to crack down on the breaches, as claimed in the Stockline Study Group report published in 2007.

I managed a plastics factory, now closed for four years, and worked in the plastic coatings industry for five years in premises reminiscent of the descriptions given by employees of the Grovepark Mills.

I have been a professional health and safety adviser for the past 20 years and I am firmly of the opinion that directors of companies that fail their employees must be prosecuted. The present health and safety legislation makes it easier to prosecute individual employees than directors. Only the directors of small companies that the HSE has been able to show had a direct hand in the events causing a work related death have been successfully prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment. The intervening layers of management and supervision and reams of health and safety documents effectively protect the directors of larger companies.