IN Brief:
- A Barnsley collision on 14 November 2024 caused serious foot injuries and lasting nerve damage.
- Temporary route changes brought forklifts and ride-on pallet trucks onto shared routes with poor visibility.
- On 20 October 2026 the company was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay £3,374 in costs.
Leggett & Platt Components Europe Limited has been fined £80,000 after an employee suffered serious foot injuries when a ride-on pallet truck collided with a forklift during machinery installation at a warehouse in Barnsley. The Health and Safety Executive found that changes to the site’s transport routes had not been adequately assessed, bringing different handling vehicles into conflict in a busy loading area.
The collision occurred at the company’s Long Royd warehouse on 14 November 2024. Charlie O’Dowd, aged 20 at the time, was operating an unguarded ride-on pallet truck when it struck a forklift driven by another employee. He sustained multiple fractures to his foot and longer-term nerve damage.
At Leeds Magistrates’ Court on 20 October 2026, Leggett & Platt Components Europe was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay £3,374 in prosecution costs. The company had pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. HSE published its account of the case on 23 October, accompanied by CCTV footage of the collision.
The warehouse was undergoing the installation of automated machinery when the transport arrangement changed. To accommodate the work, management altered the routes used by material handling vehicles. Forklifts and powered pallet trucks were subsequently required to operate along shared paths in a stock loading area where sight lines were restricted and traffic movements had increased.
Such a change can alter the way risks arise even when the equipment and employees are familiar with the site. A forklift may be required to turn or reverse while handling loads, whereas a ride-on pallet truck follows different travel and loading patterns. Where their routes converge, visibility and available clearance determine whether operators have sufficient opportunity to identify an approaching vehicle.
HSE concluded that the company had concentrated on installing the new machinery without adequately assessing the consequences for workplace transport. The altered routes were introduced without a suitable reassessment, exposing workers to hazards that had developed from the revised configuration rather than from a reported failure of the automated equipment itself.
Installation projects frequently occupy space needed for ordinary warehouse movements. Incoming machinery, temporary barriers and contractors can change access to storage, loading bays and travel aisles while the warehouse continues working. Diverting one route may cause several vehicle movements to cross an area previously used for only one operation, requiring the new arrangement to be examined before it enters use.
HSE’s workplace transport guidance requires employers to consider how vehicles and people move through a site and where their activities may conflict. Suitable measures depend on the particular layout and can include route separation, one-way traffic, designated loading areas and improvements to visibility. These are general safety principles, rather than individual remedial measures ordered by the court in this prosecution.
The assessment also needs to reflect changes over the course of a project. A temporary delivery area used during installation may later become a commissioning zone, with different restrictions on access. The vehicle movements required at each stage must be considered against the actual operating conditions rather than a site plan prepared before work began.
Operator training and vehicle maintenance are important, but safe equipment cannot compensate for every hazard created by a restricted route or an obscured junction. Similarly, signs or markings alone may provide insufficient protection where heavy traffic continues to use a confined shared space. Controls must be appropriate to the risk identified at the location.
Warehouse automation can change material flow permanently once equipment is commissioned; the period during installation introduces a separate set of constraints. HSE did not allege that automation technology malfunctioned, and its published findings concern the failure to assess and control changed vehicle interactions while the project was underway.
Inspector Chris Parker said the accident could have been prevented through suitable planning and risk assessment. The regulator’s prosecution account does not describe every subsequent modification made by the business, so no specific corrective installation or redesign can be attributed to the court’s decision. The published finding concerns the route arrangement and lack of an adequate assessment rather than any identified defect in a named machine or vehicle.
The penalty concludes proceedings arising from the November 2024 accident. The case establishes the consequences of altering busy warehouse vehicle routes without a corresponding examination of visibility, traffic levels and conflicts between handling equipment, even when the changes are introduced only for a temporary installation.
