Civil engineering firm fined more than £4m after staff strike M6 overhead powerlines

Kier has been fined more than £4m after workers twice struck overhead powerlines on the M6 motorway.

The civil engineering firm put workers and drivers in “significant danger” through its “failure to plan the work properly and provide an adequate risk assessment”, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found.

In 2018, workers accidentally struck and severed an 11kV overhead powerline that landed on the M6 and in a nearby field.

The following year, a Kier tractor struck an overhead cable which led to an unmarked 11kV powerline being hit and snapped by an oncoming lorry.

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