A motor vehicle repair company was fined after a 27 year old man gaining work experience at the garage, was crushed to death by a vehicle. Trafford Magistrates’ Court heard on 20 December 2014, Muhammed Zohaib Yasin, had been working at, Just Mercedes Limited, watching another employee carry out repair work on a Vauxhall Corsa. Mr Yasin was at the front of the vehicle as he added some antifreeze to the engine. The mechanic went to the driver’s side opened the door and turned the ignition on from outside of the vehicle. The vehicle shot forward trapping and crushing the young man, who later died from his injuries. A Health and Safety (HSE) investigation found no defects with the vehicle, but it had instead been left in gear with the handbrake off. HSE found that the employees of Just Mercedes Limited had not been given any specific instructions on selecting gears and use of handbrake when parking vehicles, on or off ramps. No specific instructions had been given to employees on operating the ignition from outside of the vehicle. There was no system in place for storage of keys.   HSE inspector Lisa Bailey said after the hearing: “Had the company ensured employees were trained and instructed on moving vehicles around the garage safely then this tragic incident might not have occurred.” Just Mercedes Ltd, of Shentonfield Road, Sharston Industrial Area, Wythenshawe, Manchester, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) and Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and were fined £33,000 with £12,000 costs. Notes to editors                                                                           The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice, promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice, and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk More information regarding safe working in the motor vehicle industry can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/mvr/index.htm More about the legislation referred to in this case can be found at: www.legislation.gov.uk/ HSE news releases are available at http://press.hse.gov.uk Journalists should approach HSE press office with any queries on regional press releases. Source link

Residential landlords in the UK are being urged not to read too much into the decision by the country to leave the European Union, having gone through a turbulent period recently. Buy to let landlords are now paying a 3% surcharge in stamp duty on each additional property they buy to add to their portfolios and are also facing further tax changes. Now there are concerns that Brexit could affect their businesses. However, according to Richard Lambert, chief executive officer of the National Landlords Association (NLA), while leaving the EU is completely unknown territory, jumping to conclusions isn’t going to help anyone. ‘We welcome governor Mark Carney’s steadying words and his reassurance that the Bank of England and the Treasury have extensive contingency plans in place to ensure the country’s financial stability,’ said Lambert. ‘Any knee-jerk reaction will have a real impact on our members’ mortgages, tenants’ rents and overall confidence in the market. So we would urge the policy as regards to interest rates should be, to continue the Prime Minister’s analogy, one of steady as she goes,’ he added. In a joint statement, David Cox, managing director of Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) and Mark Hayward, managing director of National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), said that in the short term the market can weather the uncertainty. ‘The outcome of the EU referendum will create a period of uncertainty among home owners, buyers, investors, landlords and developers. We can expect international investors to look a lot harder at the UK as a market and this will have a consequential impact upon the house building sector as investment may be stalled,’ the statement said.  ‘In the short term we believe that both prices, and rents, will remain stable, but we cannot be certain about the next quarter as political instability, and market unrest, could lead through into prices in the housing market,’ it pointed out. ‘We believe that the UK housing market is resilient, as is the supply chain that drives it.  But as we indicated in our Brexit report last month, the bigger impact may well be in the skills necessary to drive UK housing development, and this is now a major concern for UK buyers and renters,’ it added. Anne Wilson, senior tax manager of the tax department at Pierce Chartered Accountants, pointed out that tougher buy to let mortgage lending criteria has been announced. The rules will require lenders to carry out stricter stress tests on prospective borrowers or those wishing to re-mortgage to ensure that they have sufficient capital to cover repayments if interest rates increase to 5.5%. In the future, there will also be changes to the way that tax relief for interest payments on the purchase of residential lettings will be given in the tax computation. This will affect individuals, partnerships and limited liability partnerships which let out residential properties. At present there are no proposals for this restriction to apply to furnished holiday lettings nor to companies with residential lettings. She explained that currently, rental profits are reduced by any loan interest paid and therefore a top rate taxpayer could receive tax relief at 45% on their finance costs. However, under new legislation the loan finance costs will be relieved by way of a reduction of the tax liability, rather than a reduction in the rental profits, and is restricted to relief at the basic rate of income tax. Those with substantial rents and interest costs, thus with low net profits, who are currently basic rate taxpayers, could see their income pushed into the higher rate band as the interest costs will be added back to the rental income. For example, an individual whose only income is rents of £50,000 and interest costs of £20,000 would have net income of £30,000, and so within the basic rate tax band. Under the new rules the same individual would be a higher rate taxpayer because their income would be £50,000 with a deduction for interest relief given at the basic rate only. As a result of the way in which the net rent will be calculated those whose income is close to the £50,000 threshold for the withdrawal of child benefit, and those with income near £100,000 for the withdrawal of personal allowance could be adversely affected even though their income has not actually increased. To ‘soften the blow’ these measures will be phased in gradually over four years and will apply to 25% of the interest costs in the 2017/2018 tax year, 50% in the 2018/2019 tax year and 75% in the 2019/2020 tax year before being implemented in full in the year to April 2021. ‘If you have a relatively modest portfolio of properties which are let out as residential lettings, it maybe that you will simply have to accept that your income tax liability in respect of those lettings may increase in future as taking any steps to mitigate the interest restriction could be costly. Sharing income with family members or family trusts may be worth considering but capital gains tax issues will need to be addressed,’ she explained. She added that those with a substantial portfolio of residential lets may wish to consider incorporating their business, however, there could be a substantial capital gains tax liability if they incorporate their property portfolio because moving the properties into a company could trigger capital gains tax. ‘However, if you have a large property portfolio that you devote a substantial amount of time to managing, it may be possible to claim capital gains tax roll-over relief on incorporation of a business to mitigate the capital gains tax liability arising. If you have no gains in your property portfolio it may be possible to transfer the properties into a company without triggering capital gains tax,’ she explained. But there is likely to be a substantial stamp duty liability on the property transfers to a company, unless specific reliefs are available, and she advises that incorporation of a property business should not be undertaken without specialist advice. 

Fermacell’s gypsum fibreboard panels have saved construction costs for a new school. Gypsum fibreboard from fermacell was used to dry-line a new primary school to enable the main contractor, Interserve Construction, the international support services and construction group, to accelerate the construction programme. Fermacell’s 12.5mm square-edged panels have been used throughout the £5.5 million Lane End Primary School in Beeston, Leeds, which now caters for 420 three to 11-year-olds, offering nursery provision in the mornings and afternoons as well as two reception and two Year 1 classes. Designed by NPS for Leeds City Council’s children’s services, the original specification was for plasterboard which would have required two layers and plywood pattressing to meet the loading requirements for potentially heavy wall fixings. Plywood or other wooden sheets in a variety of thicknesses and grades are most commonly used for pattressing in addition to plasterboard for fixing items such as flat screen TVs, handrails and heavy tiles to walls. While failures are rare, as specifiers and installers take steps to ensure a fit-for-purpose partition, it is an outdated methodology that has not changed for many years. Using gypsum fibreboard panels enabled the dry-lining at Lane End to go ahead with just a single layer of fermacell, in effect negating the need for one layer of plasterboard and one layer of plywood pattressing, saving money on materials and manpower. DLA Architecture developed the school building design, which includes a substantial sports hall also built of steel frame with brick and block infills, at construction stage. Chartered architectural technologist Aharon Fegan said: “The original NBS specification supplied to us by NPS specified plasterboard internal wall linings. Interserve then requested that the internal wall linings specification be revised to fermacell. Interserve had not used fermacell before but they knew of the potential benefits of the product. “Interserve’s main aim was to save time on the construction programme by allowing installation of the internal walls before the building was watertight. Interserve asked us to evaluate the product for this particular building and we had a meeting with fermacell to explore the product. Once we confirmed all details and specifications, fermacell was suitably specified.” At up to 100% more dense than standard plasterboard, fermacell has incredible racking strength which provides a cost-effective single layer solution to pattressing as it is capable of carrying up to 50kg per cavity fixing and 30kg per screw for dead loads. That is the same weight as a 50” plasma TV or a couple of wall-hung cabinets. So if a school changes its mind about where it wants its plasmas, wipe boards or cupboards, they can be easily moved. This negates the designer and installer having to plan particularly carefully in advance where items are to be hung and consequently where specific areas need to be pattressed, making the interior design scheme ultimately flexible and future-proof … and the wall section thinner than the traditional plasterboard/pattress combination. The single-layer solution achieved with exceptionally dimensionally stable gypsum fibreboard also helps reduce any risk associated with pattressing potentially compromising other panel performance aspects such as fire resistance and acoustics. Gypsum fibreboard panels are resistant to impact, moisture and fire (Class 0, Class 1 surface spread of flame / Euroclass A2) and also perform acoustically – a partition with a single layer of 12.5mm gypsum fibreboard to each side achieving 54dB Rw of sound insulation when combined with appropriate insulation materials. The fermacell panels were installed at Lane End by DR Plastering, Rendering & Partitions. Commercial manager John Afford said: “The fermacell panels were an integral part of the building as it was a school and needed a severe rating. “The original specification had many double-boarded partitions with pattressing. The fermacell specification reduced the walls to single boards with minimal pattressing hence a cost saving was produced. “The basic material cost saving was approximately £6,000 or 3.5% of the dry-lining works. However, what it did save costs with was loading out/labourers as there were less materials involved and also less waste generated. These are difficult to quantify but savings will have been produced. At a guess this could have been a further £10,000.” Leeds City Council project coordinator Martin Morgan said: “fermacell products were not part of the authority requirements specification. They were a product put forward for use in sections of the building that complied with a high-level specification.” Manufactured from recycled gypsum, recycled cellulose fibres from post-consumer waste paper, and recycled water, fermacell is also fully recyclable, with all off-cuts fed back into the manufacturing process – green credentials which contribute towards BREEAM ratings. This was also important as the project was procured via the YORbuild regional efficiency framework which has a number of sustainable KPI targets. ENDS Photo: Interserve Construction   Source link