Wind farm firms admit safety failures after worker froze to death

Companies acknowledge breaking health and safety laws that resulted in death of 74-year-old Ronnie Alexander

Ronnie’s widow Mary and his daughter Laura (PA)

Two wind farm firms have admitted breaking health and safety laws which resulted in an employee freezing to death after becoming stranded in severe weather on a building site in Scotland.

Ronnie Alexander, 74, died at the Afton wind farm near New Cumnock, East Ayrshire in January 2018 after being left without heat or electricity in heavy snow.

His employer, Glasgow-based CSM Facilities and Belfast firm Farrans Construction, which was building the wind farm, admitted breaches that resulted in his death to Ayr Sheriff Court. Failings included a lack of a reliable source of heating and no adequate system of communication for staff to contact the emergency services.

A sentencing hearing will be held on 30 September.

Mr Alexander’s widow, Mary, said that losing her husband was “the hardest thing our family has experienced”.

Describing him as “loving, hard-working and kind-spirited”, she added that Mr Alexander was still working in his 70s because “he wanted to spoil his family”.

"My husband died in January 2018 and November of that year would have been our 50th wedding anniversary,” the 81-year-old said.

"To have lived through so much together and have him taken because his boss failed on basic, common sense procedures is just beyond us all.”

On 21 January 2018, the Met Office issued a yellow weather warning for snow. An alarm was raised after Mr Alexander failed to return home from a 12-hour shift.

Police Scotland’s Mountain Rescue Team found him in deep snow at around 1am nearly a mile from his security cabin where the generator had failed and left him without heat or electricity. It is likely he left the cabin to reach another just over half-a-mile away.

Mr Alexander was airlifted to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary but died later that morning from hypothermia.

Farrans is a trading division of Northstone (NI) Limited. The company said in a statement: "Northstone accepts that on this occasion at Afton Windfarm we did not meet the high health and safety standards that we seek to achieve to protect our employees, customers, clients, subcontractors and communities.

"We deeply regret that this resulted in the death of Mr Ronald Alexander. Our thoughts and sincerest sympathies remain with his family and friends.

"We took immediate action on the Afton Windfarm project to prevent a re-occurrence.

"As part of our internal investigation and the subsequent findings of this investigation, we have reviewed and improved our risk control processes across the business."

A spokesperson for CSM said: "We are deeply saddened by this incident and would like to take this opportunity to extend our heartfelt thoughts and condolences to Ronnie's family."