An appearance on Monty Don’s Mastercrafts programme on BBC2 has led to a prosecution by the Health & Safety Executive for Cambridgeshire stonemasons Atelier 109.

The company was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,400 for having levels of dust in their workshops as much as three times the legal limit.

Atelier 109 featured on the television programme in March last year. A viewer contacted HSE to express concern over inadequate precautions to protect workers from dust containing respirable crystalline silica, which can cause cancer.

HSE inspectors visited the company’s workshop in Main Road, Etton, near Peterborough, in May and served an Improvement Notice requiring Atelier 109 to take action immediately to cut the exposure to the stone dust to within the legal limit.

When a further check was made it was clear that, although improvements had been made, the ventilation system still had not been thoroughly examined and tested, so a second Improvement Notice was served on 12 February this year.

When HSE inspectors visited the premises for a third time on 16 June they found the action recommended had not been carried out.

A plea of guilty to breaching section 33 (1) (g) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974 was made on behalf of the company when Peterborough Magistrates heard the case last month.