The Wolverhampton Mail Centre Warehouse Loading Bay Roof collapsed on Friday night at around 9:45pm.
What normally is a very busy area, was at the time deserted due to the bad weather conditions preventing normal operations in the area and fortunately there were as such no casualties by sheer luck. The Roof section came down on ten of the Mail Centre’s fleet of 7.5 tonne Vehicles and also impacted the traffic office.
It’s thought that the weight of snow on the roof was the cause but an investigation is to be launched to determine the exact cause.
The fire service and structural engineers examined the building in the aftermath and determined that there is no risk of further collapse whilst further detailed structural engineering investigations will now shortly take place before plans are initiated to clear the area and carry out any safety checks and works to stabilise the area and to ensure no danger exists before removal of debris and any necessary demolition works commence.
Following that any temporary repairs and fix will be considered and subsequently permanent remedial construction works longer term will be progressed.
The CWU National Health, Safety and Environment Officer Dave Joyce has been fully involved in talks Nationally and the local CWU Area Safety Rep and other officials will be consulted and fully involved in the remedial action planning to get things put right and how they go about it. Dave Joyce has called for the incident to be reported to the HSE and declared as a Dangerous Occurrence.
Dave Joyce said “This could have been a very different situation and outcome had drivers been in their vehicles and other staff been working on the loading bay and in the yard. Therefore I’ve called for a thorough structural investigation and a HSE investigation and I’ve called for a full structural survey and investigation into the construction of this area and the rest of the building to ensure there’s no recurrences and I’ll be talking to operational, safety and property directors over the next week about what needs to be done.”
The area of the collapse has been secured and cordoned off and is out of bounds whilst contingency arrangements are being put in place to keep operations going at the Mail Centre as best they can.
