A Portsmouth firm has been fined for safety failings after a member of the public was struck by masonry during overhead work in Surrey.

The 29-year-old passer-by, who does not wish to be named, suffered cuts and bruises to his shoulder and experienced muscle spasms as a result of the incident on Camberley High Street on 31 May 2012.

Guildford Magistrates’ Court heard yesterday (4 March) that Majestic Construction Ltd was undertaking work above shops to clean stonework and install pigeon spikes.

A mobile elevating working platform (MEWP) was correctly being used for the task, but as it was being repositioned it struck a building and dislodged a chunk of masonry weighing some 8kg that fell almost 8m to the pavement below.

On the way down the stone struck the pedestrian on the shoulder and knocked him to the ground, as dramatically captured by nearby CCTV cameras.

A subsequent investigation by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) established that although barriers had been placed around the nearside support legs of the MEWP, there was nothing to prevent anyone from walking directly underneath the ongoing work overhead.

Magistrates were told that some of the barriers were being moved to provide a safe-working cordon further along the street where the MEWP was headed, but nobody warned the pedestrian to stand back or to be aware of the overhead work.

The incident could have been prevented had the work been better managed with a proper safety cordon in place, maintained the HSE.

Majestic Construction was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay £5,473 in costs after admitting a breach of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

After the hearing, HSE inspector Andrew Cousins said: “This was an entirely preventable incident that resulted in a large chunk of masonry being knocked on to an entirely innocent pedestrian. It is pure luck that it missed his head, otherwise he could well have been killed.

“Simply fencing off the area beneath the works and providing an alternative route around it is all that was necessary.

“Where people are working overhead in a public area they must exclude the public from the work area wherever possible. Public safety needs to be proactively managed in exactly the same way as that of those undertaking the work, and not just left to chance.”

Further information on safe working at height can be found online at www.hse.gov.uk/falls