Falling tile from Chichester roof '˜nearly hits man on head'

Micheal Weaver, who had been walking near the works at South Street, said the tile could have easily hit him on the head, or hurt an elderly couple next to him who were left very shaken up by the incident.

Asked to investigate, Chichester District Council responded that it appeared safety precautions were in place and the tile had been knocked by a scaffolder but Mr Weaver is concerned the same thing could happen again.

He said: “It could have put me in hospital or a tile falling from that distance could have killed someone.”

He added that the workmen had hard hats and there was netting up but ‘as far as I’m concerned I’m not going to walk under that scaffolding because I know there’s a site risk’.

NJS scaffolding said it would like to apologise to Mr Weaver for the incident.

A spokesman said: “We pride ourselves in our health and safety, strict measures were in place on this contract and we take the incident very seriously.

“There is an ongoing investigation being undertaken by our health and safety team to help prevent accidents like this in the future.”

A district council spokesperson said a member of its building control team had visited the site as soon as possible after the incident was reported.

She said: “This isn’t something we are able to deal with as, in this particular case, recovering a roof does not require building control regulations. “This site would be classed as a construction site and so the incident would be dealt with by the Health and Safety Executive as an accident or near miss.”