Pride Cleaners: why an unmanaged cooling tower earned a £100 fine
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Key points
- £100 nominal fine plus £50 costs for Pride Cleaners (2000) Limited in August 2014 — the smallest figure in the dataset, and one of the most instructive.
- The Stourbridge dry cleaner ran a process cooling tower it could not show was being managed, after dropping its water-treatment consultant with no replacement controls.
- The fine was nominal because the company had ceased trading — the conviction was not.
- Charge: HSWA 1974 sections 2(1) and 3(1) at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court, prosecuted by the HSE.
- The lesson: ending a contractor’s contract does not end the duty, and going out of business does not end the liability.
Pride Cleaners (2000) Limited, a dry-cleaning firm in Stourbridge, was fined a nominal £100 in August 2014 for failing to manage the legionella risk from a cooling tower integral to its cleaning process. The figure is tiny. The lesson is not: the company had dropped its water-treatment consultant, replaced it with nothing, and then ceased trading — and was prosecuted anyway.
It is the smallest case in our legionella enforcement tracker, and it answers two questions duty holders ask all the time: what if we stop using a contractor, and what if the business closes?
What happened
Dry cleaning is a process industry, and Pride Cleaners’ process depended on a cooling tower. Like every cooling tower, it recirculated water that could grow legionella and released aerosol that could carry it — to the firm’s own workers and, beyond the site, to the public.
The company had, at some point, employed a water-treatment consultant to manage that risk. Then it dropped the consultant. Nothing replaced them: no in-house regime, no alternative contractor, no documented controls at all. When the HSE looked at the site, the company could not show how the cooling tower was being managed, because it was not being managed.
By the time the case reached Birmingham Magistrates’ Court in August 2014, the company had ceased trading. It still pleaded guilty to breaching sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and the court, sentencing a defunct company, imposed a nominal £100 fine with £50 costs.
The failings the inspectors found
One failure, but a complete one:
- No demonstrable management of a high-risk system. A cooling tower sits in the highest-risk category in HSG274 Part 1. Running one with no risk assessment regime, no treatment programme and no monitoring is not a partial failure; it is the absence of the whole control system, and it is exactly what cooling tower control exists to prevent.
- A competence gap created by choice. The firm had recognised it needed specialist help — it had hired a consultant — and then removed that help without a plan. The gap was deliberate, and it exposed both workers and the public, which is why the charge ran under both section 2 and section 3.
The fine and costs
| Fine | £100 (nominal — company had ceased trading) |
|---|---|
| Costs | £50 |
| Charge | Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, sections 2(1) and 3(1) |
| Prosecutor | Health and Safety Executive |
| Court | Birmingham Magistrates’ Court, August 2014 |
| Illness or death | None recorded — risk exposure only |
Read the nominal fine correctly. Courts sentence the defendant in front of them, and a company that no longer trades cannot pay a deterrent fine. The £100 is a statement that the offence was proved, not a valuation of it. Had the company been trading, the same unmanaged cooling tower would have faced a fine scaled to its turnover under the guideline — as the £50,000 and £110,000 manufacturing cases elsewhere in the tracker show.
The lesson for duty holders
For small industrial and trade premises — the kind covered by our factory and industrial guidance — the case carries four lessons:
- Contractors can be replaced; the duty cannot. If you end a water-treatment contract, competent control must be in place from the same day. There is no grace period while you look for another provider.
- Process plant counts. A cooling tower that exists to serve your process is still a water system exposing people, with the full HSG274 Part 1 regime attached.
- Closure is not a defence. Offences are prosecuted for the period they were committed. Ceasing trading changes the fine, not the guilt — and personal liability for directors under section 37 survives regardless.
- Small does not mean exempt. The Act does not scale its duties by headcount. The regime can be proportionate to a simple system, but it has to exist and be recorded.
Free legionella risk assessment template
A structured Word document following the five-step approach in ACOP L8. Covers risk identification, written scheme, monitoring, and records. If it isn't written down, you can't evidence it.
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A £100 fine sounds like a slap on the wrist. It is actually a criminal conviction for running a cooling tower with no management at all — imposed on a company that thought dropping its consultant, and then closing, would end the matter. It did not.
If your site has any plant that recirculates water, start with a legionella risk assessment and make sure the regime survives every supplier change. The risk assessment builder is an indicative starting point; it records and organises what you find, and it never certifies a system as safe. For how the wider penalty landscape works, see legionella fines and prosecutions.
Source: Cleaning Matters report on the Pride Cleaners case. Figures are recorded as published in our legionella enforcement tracker dataset; check the linked source before relying on any figure.
Free legionella risk assessment template
A structured Word document following the five-step approach in ACOP L8. Covers risk identification, written scheme, monitoring, and records. If it isn't written down, you can't evidence it.
Follows ACoP L8 and HSG274 Part 2. Free. No spam.
Frequently asked questions
Why was Pride Cleaners fined only £100 for legionella failings?
The Stourbridge dry-cleaning firm could not show how it was managing the legionella risk from a cooling tower integral to its process, having dropped its water-treatment consultant without putting alternative controls in place. It pleaded guilty to breaching sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court in August 2014. Because the company had ceased trading, the court imposed a nominal £100 fine plus £50 costs. The conviction, not the number, is the point.
What happens to legionella duties if a company stops trading?
Stopping trading does not erase offences committed while the business was operating. Pride Cleaners had ceased trading by the time it was sentenced, yet it was still prosecuted, convicted and fined for the period when its cooling tower was unmanaged. Directors and managers can also face personal prosecution under section 37 of the HSWA where an offence was committed with their consent, connivance or neglect, and that personal exposure does not depend on the company continuing to exist.
Do you need a water treatment contractor for a cooling tower?
You need competent control, however it is delivered. Many smaller sites use a water treatment contractor for dosing, monitoring and inspection, which is a sensible way to get competence you do not employ. But if you drop the contractor, the duty does not pause: you must put alternative competent controls in place from day one. Pride Cleaners was prosecuted precisely because it ended its consultant’s contract and replaced it with nothing, leaving a cooling tower with no management at all.
Can a small business be prosecuted for legionella?
Yes. The duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 applies to every undertaking with a water system that can expose people, whatever its size. A small business with a cooling tower, a hot tub, or simply hot and cold water serving staff and the public needs a risk assessment and a control regime. The fine is scaled to the defendant’s means under the sentencing guideline — which is how a defunct firm came to be fined £100 — but the conviction and its consequences land the same way.
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