A Health & Safety Executive (HSE) found that Charlie Marsh, a 17-year-old apprentice bricklayer, had been injured after falling through a temporary stairwell covering.

Charlie had been working on Taylor Wimpey’s 450-home Meadowfields site in Weston-Super-Mare in August 2023, loading concrete blocks onto the temporary flooring of one of the new homes.

This was a large area covered with a timber sheet material laid over joists — both of which would be later removed to install the staircase.

The area collapsed with Charlie and 20kg of concrete blocks falling from a height of over two metres.

He sustained injuries to his fingers, hand, wrist and shoulder but an HSE investigator commented he was “lucky” to escape serious injury.

The subsequent HSE investigation found that the joists under the timber sheet material should have been back propped.

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This had in fact been flagged in Taylor Wimpey’s own health and safety manual for the site, but this had still been missed for the plot where Charlie was injured.

Taylor Wimpey pleaded guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

The company was fined £800,000 and ordered to pay £6,240.25 costs with a £2,000 victim surcharge at the North Somerset Magistrates’ Court on 3rd June 2025.

“Any work involving structural stability is potentially high risk and proper planning and implementation should be given,” said HSE inspector Derek Mclauchlan.

“The failures of Taylor Wimpey resulted in a young man at the very beginning of his career being injured.

“Charlie was lucky those injuries were not far more serious.”

This HSE prosecution was brought by HSE enforcement lawyer Samantha Tiger and paralegal officer Rebecca Withell.