Riaar Plastics: five infected by neglected cooling towers
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Key points
- £50,000 fine plus £11,000 costs for Riaar Plastics Limited in 2023, after five people — including members of the public — contracted Legionnaires’ disease near its West Bromwich factory in 2020.
- One of those infected needed intensive care. The site’s cooling towers were found in extremely poor condition.
- The charge covered both employees and the public: HSWA 1974 sections 2(1) and 3(1), because cooling-tower aerosol does not stop at the site fence.
- The case sits in the West Midlands manufacturing cluster of the enforcement tracker, where cooling towers are the recurring source.
- The lesson: a cooling tower is a notifiable, high-risk system whose condition is the control. Physical decay is a compliance failure, not just a maintenance issue.
Riaar Plastics Limited was fined £50,000 in 2023 after five people, including members of the public, contracted Legionnaires’ disease near its plastics factory in West Bromwich in 2020. One of them needed intensive care. The HSE found the site’s cooling towers were in extremely poor condition.
The case matters beyond manufacturing because it shows where the boundary of a duty holder’s responsibility actually lies. It is recorded in our legionella enforcement tracker.
What happened
In 2020, five people contracted Legionnaires’ disease in the area around Riaar Plastics’ factory in West Bromwich, in the West Midlands. They were not all workers: the infected included members of the public who had no connection to the site. One of the five became ill enough to need intensive care.
The likely vehicle was the factory’s cooling towers. A cooling tower works by evaporating water, and in doing so it releases a plume of fine water droplets. If the recirculating water inside the tower carries legionella, that plume carries the bacteria with it, and it can drift beyond the site boundary to whoever is downwind. That is what makes cooling towers the highest-consequence water system most factories will ever own.
The HSE investigated and prosecuted. In 2023 Riaar Plastics pleaded guilty to breaching sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 — the duties to protect employees and to protect everyone else. It was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay £11,000 in costs.
The failings the inspectors found
The dataset summary is short and damning: the site’s cooling towers were in extremely poor condition. Behind that phrase sits the whole of HSG274 Part 1, the technical guidance for evaporative cooling systems. A tower in extremely poor condition is not a tower with one missed check. It is a tower where the control regime — the water treatment, the monitoring, the cleaning, the physical upkeep — has failed as a system.
The physical condition of a tower is itself a control measure. Drift eliminators exist to stop droplets escaping; scale, corrosion and biofilm inside the packing give legionella somewhere to grow that biocide cannot easily reach. Our guide to cooling tower legionella control sets out what the regime should look like. When inspectors describe a tower as being in extremely poor condition, they are describing a site where those controls had not been operating for some time.
The fine and costs
| Fine | £50,000 |
|---|---|
| Costs | £11,000 |
| Charge | Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, sections 2(1) and 3(1) |
| Prosecutor | Health and Safety Executive |
| Illness or death | Five cases of Legionnaires’ disease, one requiring intensive care; no deaths recorded in the dataset |
The dual charge is worth pausing on. Section 2 covers the workforce; section 3 covers everyone else. Being charged under both is the legal reflection of the physics: a cooling tower’s aerosol plume exposes staff on site and the public off site, and the duty holder answers for both.
The lesson for duty holders
For any site operating cooling towers or evaporative condensers — most of them factories and industrial premises — the case carries four lessons:
- The tower’s condition is the control. Peeling, corroded, scaled plant cannot be made safe by dosing alone. Inspectors read physical decay as proof the regime is not running.
- Your neighbours are in your risk assessment. Section 3 exposure is not theoretical. The people infected at West Bromwich included passers-by and residents, and they counted in court.
- Notification is not permission. Registering a tower with the local authority under the 1992 Regulations is an administrative duty; it does nothing to control the bacteria. The control is the treatment and monitoring regime underneath it.
- Records are the difference between an incident and a prosecution. A site that can show an intact biocide programme, dip slides on schedule and clean inspection reports is in a different position to one relying on condition and memory. Keep the records in a log book that someone actually maintains.
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.
Five people caught Legionnaires’ disease and some of them never set foot on the site. A cooling tower does not respect a boundary fence, which is why the law charges its owner under section 2 and section 3 at the same time.
Cooling towers sit at the top of the risk hierarchy in the enforcement record, alongside spa pools. If your site runs one, start with the legionella risk assessment that HSG274 Part 1 requires, and use the risk assessment builder as an indicative starting point for structuring it. It records and organises what you find; it never certifies a system as safe.
Source: The Business Desk report on the Riaar Plastics fine. 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 Riaar Plastics fined over legionella?
Five people, including members of the public, contracted Legionnaires’ disease in 2020 near Riaar Plastics’ West Bromwich factory, one of them needing intensive care. The HSE found the site’s cooling towers were in extremely poor condition. The company pleaded guilty to breaching sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and was fined £50,000 plus £11,000 costs in 2023.
Can a factory be prosecuted for infecting members of the public?
Yes. Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to conduct their undertaking so that people outside the workforce are not exposed to risk. A cooling tower releases aerosol that can travel well beyond the site boundary, so a poorly maintained tower is a risk to neighbours as well as staff. In the Riaar Plastics case the people infected included members of the public, and the company was charged under both section 2 and section 3.
What condition should a cooling tower be kept in?
HSG274 Part 1 expects a cooling tower to be risk-assessed, notified to the local authority, treated with a biocide programme, monitored, and kept in sound physical condition, with drift eliminators intact so aerosol is not carried off site. Signs of neglect include corroded or scaled packing, damaged drift eliminators, stagnant sumps, and treatment records with gaps. A tower in visibly poor condition is a tower whose control regime has failed, which is exactly what the HSE found at Riaar Plastics.
Who enforces legionella control at a manufacturing site?
Manufacturing premises fall to the Health and Safety Executive rather than the local authority. The HSE inspects, serves improvement and prohibition notices, and prosecutes breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Cooling towers also have to be notified to the local authority under the Notification of Cooling Towers and Evaporative Condensers Regulations 1992, which creates a register the enforcing authority can inspect against.
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