THE managers of a Kendal car park have been fined £95,000 and ordered to pay £50,000 costs following the death of a pensioner who was hit by a delivery van.
Jaymar Estates Ltd, which manages the Station House car park near Kendal Railway Station where 91-year-old Gertrude Donaldson was fatally hit, admitted breaching health and safety legislation.
Grandmother Mrs Donaldson, of Ash Meadow Crescent, Kendal, was walking back from the Station House doctors’ surgery on October 28 2009 when she was hit by a delivery van that was reversing through the car park.
South Lakeland District Council took action against Jaymar Estates Ltd, of Cardinal House, St Mary’s Parsonage, Manchester, following the incident.
MORE TOP STORIES: At Carlisle Crown Court yesterday the firm was fined £95,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £50,000 after admitting breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
The court heard that at the time of the incident the car park was in a poor state of repair with no clearly marked areas to separate pedestrians and vehicles. Parking bays for vehicles were not clearly marked either. The state of the car park led to Mrs Donaldson being in the path of the reversing van.
Judge Peter Hughes said: “The state of the car park had been a cause of concern for a year.”
He added that although there had been a number of factors involved in the accident “the primary responsibility for the accident must rest with Jaymar itself. It was Jaymar that was responsible for the overall operation of the car park”.
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