GO-KARTERS in Oldbury had a lucky escape when metal sheets crashed through the roof of an indoor racing track.

The terrifying incident happened at The Raceway, Park Lane, in April last year and this week Barnsley based construction firm KSMT Ltd were fined after a Health and Safety Executive investigation.

HSE inspector Gareth Langston said: “This incident was entirely preventable. There were ten racers on the track at the time who were within seconds of being struck – with potentially devastating consequences.

Sandwell Magistrates’ Court heard a sub-contractor lifted new metal roof sheets, which weighed three quarters of a tonne, on to the roof using the forks of a telehandler.

However, the sheets and one of the forks fell off and through the existing corrugated roof before crashing through a raised section of the kart track inside onto a the lower section of track.

None of the racers were in the area where the materials landed narrowly having passed through seconds earlier.

The HSE investigation found the lifting operation was poorly planned and KSMT, as the main contractor for the work, failed to assess the risks or produce a method statement or lifting plan.

Metal was loaded directly on to metal, increasing the risk of slipping, and the forks of the telehandler were not wide enough to take the load.

KSMT Ltd, of Fall Bank Industrial Estate, Barnsley, was fined £5000 and ordered to pay a further £500 in costs with a £500 victim surcharge after pleading guilty to a single breach of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.

Mr Langston added: ""It could have been avoided in any number of ways; by securing the load to the forks, using a pallet to reduce the slip of metal on metal, using wider forks, a pallet, crane or a scaffold, or ensuring the forks were locked on.

“No thought was given to any of these methods, nor of lifting the materials when the track was unoccupied."

He added: "This case shows the importance of properly planning lifting operations and highlights the duty of the principal contractor on a site to manage their subcontractors.”