Site owner fined for failing to ensure safety of tenants

A Doncaster caravan-park owner has been fined for leaving her tenants exposed to gas leaks and dangerously high levels of carbon monoxide.

Tina Gavin was fined £16,000 and ordered to pay full costs of £7,500 at Doncaster Magistrates' Court in March after pleading guilty to breaching s3(2) of HSWA 1974 by failing to ensure the safety of her tenants.

After an unrelated fire in the park in Bentley, near Doncaster, in which a man died, the Health and Safely Executive visited the site on 28 September 2006 to check gas safety. HSE inspector Chris Chambers explained, 'We were approached by tenants of mobile homes on the site, who complained about problems with their gas fittings.

'We found three caravans were immediately dangerous, and capped off the gas supply. The cookers were producing dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, there were gas leaks on the supplies of propane gas leading to a risk of explosion, and flues on water heaters had not been connected.'

Subsequent checks by CORGI-registered engineers found serious problems with the gas installations at nearly all the 30 caravans on the site, none of which had gas safety certificates.

In mitigation, Tina Gavin said she had no previous convictions. She had cooperated with the investigation and had been unaware that her duties as a landlady to obtain gas safety certificates and undertake maintenance applied to mobile homes as well as the other properties she owned.

Chris Chambers said the case was one of the most flagrant breaches of gas safety in relation to health and safety law he had ever dealt with.

The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 apply to all domestic, residential and sleeping accommodation. As a landlord and/or as an employer you have duties under these Regulations. Read more about your responsibilities for your own premises in Product Safety.