Kier Stoke had charged the city council £423,000 for the use of scaffolding in 2008/09.
But taxpayers paid out £1.4 million in 2009/10 after Kier Stoke imposed the ladders ban.
It costs £35-a-day to erect scaffolding at a property, with the structures remaining for an average of eight days.
Now council officials are trying to reduce the cost by persuading Kier to use cheaper platform towers.
Tenants and councillors today described the ladders ban as ‘health and safety gone mad’.
City Independents deputy leader Councillor Dave Conway, said: “I’ve warned my wife that if the bathroom light goes we will have to put scaffolding up.
“It’s nonsense. Pensioners whose lights have gone outside their homes have had to wait for scaffolding.
“It’s health and safety gone mad.”
Community Voice councillor Mike Barnes said: “Kier has had a ladder ban across the country since January 2010 after someone fell off a ladder and seriously injured themselves.
“Since then, small jobs are being held up by Kier because they need scaffolding and it costs us £35-a-day.
“There are pensioners who need a new security light which someone six feet tall could put up by hand, who are having to wait six months because scaffolding is needed.”
Tenant David Burton gave up waiting for Kier to change the bulb on the security light outside his home and changed it himself – after standing on his tip-toes.
The 37-year-old, of Blurton, said: “I live in a ground-floor flat and don’t get home from work until 11pm, so I need the light.
“After three weeks waiting I phoned the council and they said there was a ladder ban so they would have to use scaffolding.
“But if I stood on my tip-toes I could reach it myself.
“In the end I bought a bulb and changed it myself and it works fine. Kier came out five weeks after I called them but by then it was too late.”
Council officials today described the £1.4 million bill as a ‘significant amount’.
A spokesman said: “The money was spent to provide safe access to roofs, windows and guttering to carry out necessary housing repairs through our contractor Kier.
“We are working with Kier to reduce this cost by introducing new safe and efficient methods of access like platform towers rather than scaffolding.
“We are confident that we can carry on reducing the cost with wider use of platform towers.”
Via: www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk U.K. Edition
The company plans to invest more than $2 million in the site’s preparation to turn it into a regional super center for its infrastructure business group. Full operations are expected to begin in April.
The company has also relocated the senior leadership of its Harsco Metals, Harsco Minerals, Harsco Infrastructure and Harsco Industrial groups to the corporate headquarters in Camp Hill, bringing in approximately 35 senior-level executives and supporting managers. The company has secured nearly 10,000 square feet of additional nearby office space for its corporate functions.
The 21-acre Harrisburg operations site, near the Capitol in downtown Harrisburg, will become Harsco’s northeast and mid-Atlantic region super center for rental scaffolding, shoring and forming resources used in the construction and maintenance of building projects, energy plants, airports, highways and civil works facilities.
Of the 20 jobs the company expects to create at the site by the end of the year, most will be for handling inventory and equipment maintenance.
Via: 
The air ambulance landed close to the scene, on the Common, at around 3.40pm, after receiving reports of a man in his 50s who had suffered head injuries as a result of the fall in Leyton Road.
Ambulance service spokesman Gary Sanderson said: “We believe the man fell off scaffolding and landed on wooden planks on the next level below.
“When our paramedics arrived at the scene, they found him approximately six feet up, he had received a head injury.”
The injured man was assessed at the scene and taken to hospital by paramedics but the air ambulance was not needed.
Via: 
Roland Jungbauer, 43, was a former scaffolder turned self-employed window cleaner with a conscientious attitude to safety at work, Wakefield Coroner’s Court was told.
There were no witnesses to the fall, which happened as Mr Jungbauer, of Ossett, was working at a house in Grey Court at Outwood, Wakefield, last March 9.
Householder Katie Mellor was out when Mr Jungbauer was cleaning her first floor windows.
Coroner’s officer Colin Mantell said when she returned home, just before 3pm, Mr Jungbauer told her: “Let me in I’m freezing.”
Mr Mantell added: “She opened the door and he collapsed in the doorway.”
Mr Jungbauer was taken to Pinderfields Hospital at Wakefield and later transferred to the intensive care unit at Leeds General Infirmary.
He did not regain consciousness and died from a severe, traumatic brain injury at LGI seven days later.
In a statement read to the court, Mr Jungbauer’s sister Sally said her brother was a “conscientious worker – always aware of his own safety.”
She added: “He used to be a scaffolder and was used to working at heights. He did not take risks and to the best of my knowledge he had never fallen from his ladder before.”
Miss Jungbauer’s life-long friend and fellow window cleaner Paul Wilkes said in a statement how he noticed after the accident that Mr
Jungbauer’s ladders were broken on the third rung up, adding: “I know he only bought the ladders last year. He always kept his equipment in good working order.”
Recording a verdict of accidental death, deputy coroner Melanie Wiliamson, said: “Tragically, for some reason Mr Jungbauer did fall from his ladders. We do know the third rung up was broken, how that happened we do not know.”
He did not regain consciousness and died from a severe, traumatic brain injury at LGI seven days later.
In a statement read to the court, Mr Jungbauer’s sister Sally said her brother was a “conscientious worker – always aware of his own safety.”
She added: “He used to be a scaffolder and was used to working at heights. He did not take risks and to the best of my knowledge he had never fallen from his ladder before.”
Miss Jungbauer’s life-long friend and fellow window cleaner Paul Wilkes said in a statement how he noticed after the accident that Mr
Jungbauer’s ladders were broken on the third rung up, adding: “I know he only bought the ladders last year. He always kept his equipment in good working order.”
Recording a verdict of accidental death, deputy coroner Melanie Wiliamson, said: “Tragically, for some reason Mr Jungbauer did fall from his ladders. We do know the third rung up was broken, how that happened we do not know.”
Via: 
First Lt. Muhammad Al-Hubail, acting spokesman for the Civil Defense in Riyadh, said the accident happened at Princess Noura bint Abdul Rahman University.
He said the injured workers were taken to the National Guard Hospital. “An investigation has been ordered into the incident. Many Civil Defense units and helicopters participated in the rescue operations and airlifting of those injured to hospital,” he added.
Located east of Riyadh, the university was established under the instructions of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to bring together all female colleges in the national capital under one roof.
Via:arabnews.com 
However, workers who lost their jobs when Rok went into administration in November last year have had their statutory redundancy money paid by the Government.
There was not enough cash in the failed builder’s coffers after it went bust without warning, owing creditors, including construction companies and the banks, almost £200 million.
Staff at most of the company’s offices were laid off en masse and around 220 people at the Westhoughton depot lost their jobs.
Bolton firm P and R Pointing took a £277,000 hit when Rok failed to pay for work carried out on several projects.
The company, which carried out scaffolding and pointing work around the North West, had to lay off 17 scaffolders, but was strong enough to carry on despite the massive debt and is now busy again.
Brothers Peter and Russell Gastall, who are joint managing directors of the St Helens Roadbased firm, said they have gritted their teeth and carried on winning new business.
Peter Gastall said: “We have been told that we won’t even get a penny in the pound of the £277,000 Rok owed us.
“We’ve been told that there’s no money left to pay anything to anyone.
It’s disgraceful but that’s the way it is unfortunately.
“But we are winning quite a bit of work in different places and we are still going ahead with our planned office move.”
At JDK Roofing, off Manchester Road, where the company was owed £100,000 by Rok, it is also business as usual.
Contracts manager Martin Richards said: “Things have been a bit tight but we have had to take the hit and get on with it. We got through and we are very busy right now.”
Administrators Price Waterhouse Cooper (PCW) had agreed that redundancy payments, dependent on the employees’ length of service, would be paid out by the Redundancy Payments Office (RPO), part of the government Insolvency Service.
The RPO has been working to ensure that all straightforward claims were paid within six weeks.
The Bolton News understands that the majority of such payments have been made.add for p13 A spokesman for PWC said: “It is extremely unlikely that any distribution will be made to the unsecured creditors of Rok within 12 months, principally because a significant number of assets, such as contract receipts, will not be recovered within the year.
Via: 
DEESIDE scaffolding and specialist contracts group, NSG UK, is reporting a 10% rise in sales in 2010, to £18m.
In May last year, the firm was subject to a management buyout led by managing director Michael Carr.
Liverpool-born Mr Carr describes NSG as a “multi-disciplined contractor”.
As well as providing scaffolding for the industrial and construction sectors, it also offers a range of other services that includes thermal insulation, industrial painting, blasting, specialist cleaning and more recently rail.
It has won a number of new clients over the past 12 months, and has grown staff numbers to 450.
Contracts secured include a three- year deal in Speke with global pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly, construction works for Vinci at Whiston Hospital, and a £65m bio-energy facility being built by drinks giant Diageo, in Fife, Scotland.
Mr Carr said that, despite the recession hitting the construction and property sector, NSG had maintained a strong position.
He added: “This has been a dynamic year for us and, despite the rough waters, we have continued to increase turnover, win clients and grow the NSG UK brand.
“We have maintained growth in the construction and engineering sectors while expanding into the rail, social housing, marine and off-shore, and oil and gas sectors.
“We also see the resurgent nuclear industry as a key market for NSG UK, and we are always looking at ways to expand our portfolio.”
NSG had been acquired by MWB in February, 2008, but was purchased back in the buyout last year.
Mr Carr said: “NSG UK has been in existence, under various guises, for the past 40 years, and it is testimony to our credibility and performance that over that time we have built solid relationships with illustrious clients such as Ineos Chlor Vinyls, Ineos Enterprises, Centrica, Corus, Cammell Laird and Lilly.”
