Firms respond to coroner's concerns that the death of a Wigan woman crushed by a wall was preventable
The coroner ruled 77-year-old Clarice Berry’s death could have been prevented.
Concerns about a bowing wall of a house in Wigan, which collapsed and crushed a pensioner, were reported nearly eight years before her death, a coroner found.
Clarice Berry, 77, died from chest injuries after the gable wall of her home on Old Lane, Shevington collapsed on July 18, 2021.
She was in the lean-to carport beneath the gable end of the property when the gable wall and upper part of the outer leaf of the end wall, weighing around 3,800kg, collapsed.
Coroner Bronia Hartley ruled her death could have been prevented if action was taken after concerns about the wall were repeatedly raised.
In a prevention of future deaths report now published, Ms Hartley said Mrs Berry’s husband reported the bowing wall nearly eight years earlier.
The rental property was owned by landlord S&G Properties (No 2) Limited and overseen by property management company KMPM.
From 2013, it showed signs of cavity wall tie erosion, the report said.
Mr Berry reported concerns to the managing agent, but his report “fell by the wayside” when new managing agent Kaye Mackenzie took over.
A property manager from Kaye Mackenzie visited in August 2013 and wrote: “Gable wall big bulge in wall – needs urgent repointing/+rebuild.”
He visited again in March 2016 and noted that the gable “needs repointing”.
The manager retired when Kaye Mackenzie was wound up in January 2020.
A former partner continued the property management side of the business as KMPM.
The bulge in the gable wall was highlighted again in February or March 2021 to a gas engineer, but no works were carried out, Ms Hartley wrote.
After Mrs Berry’s death, investigations revealed the bowing had been caused by “the complete failure” of wall ties in the upper part of the cavity wall below the gable wall.
The inquest heard evidence that the wall’s eventual collapse was “inevitable” without repairs, the report said.
Ms Hartley wrote: “I found that any reasonably competent property management company and/or responsible landlord would, at the very least, have ensured that the wall was monitored for any signs of progression and, by no later than 2018, would have ensured that a structural survey was performed.”
The coroner found neither the landlord not the property management company followed Government guidance designed to minimise potential hazards.
Ms Hartley said no clear systems were in place to prevent a similar incident happening again, “namely the development of a serious hazard during a tenancy which, as in the deceased’s case, is reported but is not appropriately or timeously responded to, or which is not identified by the tenant”.
Neither company carried out a post-incident evaluation to assess whether their properties were free from serious, outstanding hazards which have not come to the attention of the local authority, she added.
In their response, a director of S&G Properties (No 2) Limited said Mrs Berry’s death was “a terrible tragedy and one which has caused me considerable sadness”.
Among the actions the company said it has taken were arrangements for independent inspections to be carried out for all its residential properties.
KMPM said: “KMPM has undertaken a comprehensive review of its property management procedures and has introduced a number of significant changes to its inspection, hazard identification, escalation, compliance monitoring and project management procedures.”