Salford Grab Hire £10k fine: maintenance safety lessons for plant engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
A Manchester-based grab hire firm, Salford Grab Hire Limited, has been fined £10,000 plus £3,475.90 costs after a one-tonne excavator bucket, used to prop a raised tipper truck body during repair, became dislodged and crushed a mechanic in October 2023. The worker sustained multiple fractures to his hand, shoulder blade, ribs, shin and thigh, a crushed ankle and foot, and a pulmonary blood clot. HSE found the bucket lacked a quick hitch or retaining pin and that no appropriate tipper body support equipment or safe system of work had been used.
Technical Brief
- Failure mechanism involved loss of support when an unsecured one-tonne excavator bucket slipped from the tipper body.
- HSE investigation focused on absence of mechanical retention (no quick hitch or pin) between bucket and arm.
- Salford Grab Hire Limited admitted breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
- Sentencing at Warrington Magistrates’ Court on 27 January 2026 imposed £10,000 fine plus £3,475.90 costs.
- Typical remediation would require formal safe systems of work, lock-off procedures and certified body support equipment.
- Monitoring of compliance should include periodic HSE-style audits of maintenance practices and plant support arrangements.
- Incident reinforces industry need for specific vehicle-body propping risk assessments, not ad hoc use of earthmoving plant.
Our Take
Among the 41 Hazards stories in our database, UK cases involving the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) often lead to relatively modest fines but substantial operational disruption, signalling that reputational and downtime costs can outweigh the headline penalty for firms like Salford Grab Hire.
Incidents tagged as Safety/Failure that involve lifting plant or attachments – such as this 1‑tonne excavator bucket case in Greater Manchester – frequently trigger follow‑on inspections across a contractor’s wider fleet, so similar grab hire and groundwork operators in the region can expect closer scrutiny of lifting accessories and quick‑hitch procedures.
Where HSE prosecutions in the United Kingdom arise from relatively recent incidents (as here, with an October 2023 event reaching court in January 2026), our coverage suggests that companies which can evidence rapid remedial action and revised safe systems of work tend to avoid more severe sanctions or enforcement undertakings.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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