By Chris Carter, Managing Solicitor, Carter & Carter Solicitors | 5 March 2026

There is a term used in workplace safety that does not get enough attention outside courtrooms: the collapse zone. It is the area where a structure will fall if it fails. In any properly planned operation involving heavy loads, nobody should be standing in it.

In February 2026, two companies were fined at Leeds Crown Court after two workers were killed when a warehouse racking system collapsed during testing at a site in Bingley, West Yorkshire. The Health and Safety Executive’s investigation was blunt: neither company had identified the collapse zone. Both workers had been placed directly inside it. The HSE inspector’s conclusion was equally direct — this was a wholly avoidable incident.

This post explains what the prosecution found, what it means legally for workers in warehousing and industrial settings, and what you should know if you have been injured because your employer failed to plan safe working conditions.

What happened at the Bingley site in October 2020?

As reported by the HSE, two workers were killed on 29 October 2020 when an industrial racking system collapsed during load testing at Castefields Industrial Estate in Bingley, West Yorkshire. The racking was being loaded with test weights of up to two tonnes at the time of the collapse. Both workers were operating from a mobile elevating work platform positioned directly adjacent to the racking structure as it was being loaded.

When the structure gave way, it struck the work platform and caused it to overturn. Both workers suffered fatal injuries. The HSE’s subsequent investigation identified three critical failures: neither company had adequately identified the collapse zone during planning; both workers had been positioned within that zone throughout the operation; and the overall system of work was fundamentally unsafe from the outset.

At Leeds Crown Court on 11 February 2026, both companies pleaded guilty to breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and were fined a combined total exceeding £157,000, plus costs. The source material for this post is the HSE press release published at press.hse.gov.uk.

What does the HSE’s investigation tell us about employer responsibility?

The HSE’s findings in this case are a clear statement of the standard employers are expected to meet. Before any work begins involving heavy loads, unstable structures, or equipment under test conditions, employers must plan the operation properly. That means identifying every foreseeable risk — including what happens if the structure fails — and ensuring workers are kept out of any area where that failure could cause harm.

In this case, the collapse zone was never identified. The workers were therefore never protected from it. The danger existed from the moment planning began — not from the moment the racking gave way. That distinction matters enormously in law. By the time the structure failed, the employer had already failed the workers.

Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employers are legally required to carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments for all work activities. Where the risk involves serious or potentially fatal harm, the standard of that assessment must be correspondingly high. An employer who cannot demonstrate that they identified foreseeable risks — and took steps to eliminate or control them — will find it very difficult to defend a claim.

What evidence matters most in a risk assessment failure claim?

In cases like this, the evidence that carries most weight is the documentation your employer produced — or failed to produce — before the accident. A risk assessment that doesn’t mention the hazard that caused your injury is powerful evidence of failure. So is the absence of any written risk assessment at all. Safe work method statements, toolbox talks, site induction records, and training logs all become relevant when a claim is being investigated.

If you were injured in a warehouse, manufacturing, or industrial setting, there will typically be records available through HSE enforcement activity, your employer’s insurers, and your own accident report book entry. An experienced solicitor can request and review all of this for you. The goal is to demonstrate that your employer’s planning failed you — and in the majority of claims of this kind, the evidence to do that is there.