A fencing contractor in Liverpool has been fined after an employee suffered an electric shock and burns as a result of striking a live underground cable.
Paul Taylor was working for City Fencing Contractors Limited on a construction site at Meade Hill Road, Manchester on 21 May 2024. He had been part of a team installing security fencing to the Meade Hill Shul synagogue.
The 59-year-old was using a breaker to dig into the ground in preparation to install the metal fencing. However, the father-of-three struck a live underground cable causing electric shock, which resulted in him sustaining multiple burn injuries to his stomach, chest and arms.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that City Fencing Contractors Limited had failed to implement suitable and sufficient controls to prevent risk from underground services.
HSE guidance states that construction work which is liable to create a risk to health or safety from an underground service, or from damage to or disturbance of it, must not be carried out unless suitable and sufficient steps have been taken to prevent the risk, so far as is reasonably practicable.
A safe system of work has three basic elements – planning the work; detecting, identifying and marking underground services; safe excavation/safe digging practices.
Careful planning and risk assessments are essential before the work starts. Risk assessments should consider how the work is to be carried out, ensuring local circumstances are taken into account.
Plans or other suitable information about all buried services in the area should be obtained and reviewed before any excavation work starts. Plans give only an indication of the location, and number of underground services at a particular site. It is essential that a competent person traces cables using suitable locating devices.
Before work begins, underground cables must be located, identified and clearly marked. Excavation work should be carried out carefully and follow recognised safe digging practices.
Further guidance can be found here: Excavation and underground services – HSE.
City Fencing Contractors Limited, of 1 Brookfield Dr, Liverpool, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 25(4) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. The Company was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £5,487 costs at Warrington Magistrates Court on 26th May 2026.
This prosecution is a clear reminder that work near underground electrical cabling must be subject to a suitable and sufficient risk assessment before any ground is broken. Plans and drawings should be obtained and reviewed, but they must be treated as indicative only and supported by competent cable location, clear marking of services and a documented safe system of work. Where breakers, posts or excavation tools are used, the consequences of striking live services can be severe, so planning, supervision and safe digging practices are essential controls. The case also reinforces the importance of ensuring contractors can evidence how underground service risks have been identified, communicated and managed on site.
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