Hotel fined for multiple safety breaches
July 19th 2010
The owners of a north Norfolk hotel and leisure facility will have to pay more than £20,000 in fines and legal costs.
The Hotel and Golf Club located in West Runton, admitted eight health and safety breaches, including failing to manage the risk of Legionnaire’s disease.
The string of offences included no proper risk assessments, failing to identify trip hazards and hazardous chemicals, and no system in place to make sure staff and customers were not exposed to potentially dangerous levels of legionella bacteria.
During one visit to the site, environmental health officers from North Norfolk District Council discovered that the chef had been made responsible for adding chemicals to the swimming pool, even though they had no adequate training.
EHOs served an improvement notice on the hotel, but a follow-up visit in February this year revealed that significant progress had not been made. They subsequently served a further seven notices.
The company were then prosecuted for failing to comply with the terms of the notices, and Cara Jordan, speaking on behalf of the prosecution team, told Cromer Magistrates Court:
“This is a company in a position of trust — both the employees and hotel users trust that it is a safe place.”
A spokesperson for the company said in mitigation that an outside contractor had since been employed to carry out a health and safety audit, and that a legionella assessment had now been carried out.
The company was ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £20,960. This included £2,000 for each breach, plus £4,945 court costs and a £15 victim surcharge.
Connaught provide a full range of commercial water services including water treatment, water system testing and Legionella risk assessments.