HSE Action Too Late
4 December 2006
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) improvement notice came 'too late', a grieving family has said. HSE has ordered Camden council to take urgent action to make council-run construction sites safe.....
The action to improve electrical safety on the borough's sites came two months after the electrocution of scaffolder Ralph Kennedy on a Camden construction job. Mr Kennedy's relatives welcomed the HSE intervention but said it was 'a little bit too late'.
An HSE spokesperson told local paper the Camden New Journal last week: 'The investigation is ongoing but this action is to make sure that nothing similar happens while we are investigating.' June Loughran, the aunt of Mr Kennedy, who was 24 when he died ( Risks 276 ), said: 'Reading between the lines the council have been told they have to smarten up their act in relation to safety.
It's a good thing and not a good thing because it's a little bit too late.' She added: 'Put it this way, if it prevents another tragedy then it's all well and good. But it's like watch this space really as to whether they practice what they preach.' At the time of his death, Mr Kennedy was working extra hours to pay for a puppy which he intended to give his son Bailey for his birthday. The family is angry that it has been stopped from putting up a plaque at the spot where Ralph Kennedy died.