Health and Safety

HEALTH_AND_SAFETY_

Following a major railway accident, an inspector served on R Plc., which owned and operated the railway infrastructure, a notice under section 22 of the...Following a major railway accident, an inspector served on R Plc., which owned and operated the railway infrastructure, a notice under section 22 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 prohibiting the carrying on of activities consisting of the operation of part of the railway infrastructure.

R Plc.

appealed on the ground that since no activities were being carried on in the aftermath of the accident the inspector had no power to serve the notice.

An employment tribunal dismissed the appeal.

R Plc.

appealed.Roger Henderson QC and Roger Eastman (instructed by Kennedys) for R Plc.

Hugh Carlisle QC and David Barr (instructed by Solicitor, Health and Safety Executive) for the inspector.Held, dismissing the appeal, that section 22 should be given a purposive construction which rendered it effective in its role of protecting the public safety; that, so construed, section 22 conferred powers on inspectors not merely prior to, but also in the aftermath of, the most serious accidents; that activities were still being carried on for the purposes of section 22 if they had been temporarily interrupted or suspended as a result of a major accident; that in determining whether activities had ceased all the surrounding circumstances and reasons for temporary inactivity had to be considered; and that, accordingly, the inspector had been entitled to frame the notice in the present tense and to conclude that so long as a risk existed, however remote, that the infrastructure referred to in the notice might be brought back into full use, and a prohibition notice should be issued.