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TAV Engineering Ltd has been charged with breaching safety regulations after an explosion at the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot. A probe ordered into the blast of December 2005, led to confirmation that at least three firms had not taken the necessary measures to protect the workers or public from getting injured.

St Alban’s Crown Court also convicted Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Ltd. on the same charge a week earlier along with Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd. Both these companies had not taken any preventive measures to keep an outbreak of fire or any major accident from occurring. Since the area and water surrounding Buncefield were affected, Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd. was also found guilty of a pollution charge.

A joint statement released by both the Environment Agency and HSE, stated that the Buncefield fire was the biggest and most complex criminal inquiry that the two organizations had worked on together, and described it as the product of many hundreds of hours of painstaking forensic investigation.

They went on to say that they were intent on prosecuting companies that put workers and members of the public at risk and caused environmental damage. During the fire at Buncefield on 11 December 2005, (the largest in peacetime Europe), these companies had failed to protect workers, members of the public and the environment.

The statement described the scale of the explosion and fire at Buncefield as immense. Luckily, no one had died. However, the organizations were concerned that this could change in future if high hazard industries did not truly learn a lesson.

At hearings held previously, Total and British Pipeline Agency Ltd. was found guilty of similar charges. The jury will pronounce the verdict on 16 July.

Companies need to be sure that they are giving the correct instructions with effective policies around health and safety decisions. Fire Risk Assessment Training will benefit organisations in enabling them to understand their responsibilities for fire safety, and put in place measures to control the risks of fire as required under legislation.