A Slough stone company which failed to protect its workers from exposure to hazardous dust has been fined £60k. Inspectors visited Inova Stone Ltd, which produces kitchen worktops, nine times over a six year period but saw little or improvement to their concerns.
On one occasion in May 2021 inspectors were left stunned when employees told them that ‘no one is in charge of health and safety’. They had visited the site due to concerns raised about unsafe working practices.
Shortly afterwards inspectors found bosses were failing to protect workers against exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS). RCS dust is invisibly fine and can reach deep inside the lung – causing permanent and often life-changing damage.
Pictures show the workplace floor caked in the deadly dust which can result in lung cancer over a sustained period of exposure. Stone worktops are becoming increasingly popular in home kitchens. Processing stone by cutting, chiselling and polishing can create dust that contains airborne particle that carry RCS.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) also found Inova Stone Ltd routinely allowed them to use unguarded machinery, while heavy stone slabs were not being stored properly – which could result in serious injury.
As a result of the inspection, the company was served with four improvement notices, as inspectors found similar actions had been taken by the HSE in 2017.
Inova Stone Ltd of Willow Road, Colnbrook, Slough, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act and failing to comply with three improvement notices. The company was fined £60,000 and ordered to pay £7,363 costs at Staines Magistrates’ Court on May 20, 2025.
After the hearing, HSE Principal Inspector Karen Morris said: “Inova Stone Ltd failed to comply with legal notices requiring them to make improvements and repeatedly showed a lack of commitment to managing health and safety. We were stunned when employees told us that ‘no-one was in charge of health and safety’.
“After being provided with advice and guidance over several years, the company had plenty of opportunities to comply with the law, yet they consistently failed to do so. The fine imposed should send a clear message to employers that the risks from working with engineered stone must be taken extremely seriously.”
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