Fragile Roofs on Farm Buildings: What Regulation 9 Requires

A 24-year-old bricklayer stepped on a polycarbonate roof sheet while repairing a barn at East Fleetham Farm near Seahouses, Northumberland. He fell around 2.4m onto the concrete floor below, broke two vertebrae and his sternum, and needed surgery.

His employer, Len Smith & Son Building Contractors Limited of Beadnell, was fined £20,000 with £5,744 costs at North Tyneside Magistrates’ Court on 6 August 2026. The HSE investigation found no risk assessment and no safe system of work for the job. The company breached sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

Rooflights Are The Part People Forget

Farm roofs are rarely uniform. A fibre cement or steel sheet roof will often have translucent panels let into it for daylight, and those panels are the weakest thing up there. They weather, they go brittle, and after twenty years of moss, dust and repainting they can be almost indistinguishable from the sheets around them.

The HSE’s position is blunt: most fibre cement roofs are fragile, and so are rooflights. Nobody should work on, from or walk over a fragile roof unless platforms, covers or similar protection are in place.

Falls from height killed 31 workers in Great Britain in 2025/26 — around a quarter of all worker deaths. Agriculture, forestry and fishing recorded 22 deaths and the highest fatality rate of any sector, at 8.09 per 100,000 workers. Falls are the second highest cause of death in farming, with at least eight a year.

What Regulation 9 Actually Says

Regulation 9 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 deals specifically with fragile surfaces. It works in three steps.

First, avoid it. So far as reasonably practicable, nobody should pass across or near, or work on, from or near a fragile surface where the job can be done safely another way — from a MEWP, from below, or from a scaffold.

Second, if that isn’t practicable, provide suitable and sufficient platforms, coverings, guard rails or similar means of support and protection, and take steps to minimise both the distance and the consequences of a fall.

Third, put prominent warning notices at the approach to the fragile surface, so the next person who goes up knows what they’re standing on.

Schedule 2 sets the dimensions for guard rails: a top rail at least 950mm above the edge, and no gap between rails greater than 470mm. Toeboards where there’s a risk of objects falling.

Cover It, Guard It, or Keep People Off It

The order matters, and it’s the same order the Work at Height Regulations use.

• Avoid the roof. Most farm roof repairs can be done from a hired MEWP or a tower rather than off the sheets themselves. If the job can be done from below or from a platform, that’s the answer.
• Cover or guard the fragile material. Where roof access is unavoidable — gutter clearing, a solar array, a plant deck — the rooflights need covering with load-bearing covers, or fencing off with a guardrail so nobody can reach them.
• Protect the edge. Perimeter guardrails on a roof that gets regular access are the collective control. Everyone is protected, all the time, whether they’ve been briefed or not.
• Harnesses last. Personal fall arrest is the bottom of the hierarchy, not the top. It only protects the person wearing it, only if it’s fitted correctly, only if it’s anchored to something rated, and only if there’s a rescue plan. Collective protection first, every time.

Rooflight Covers And Skylight Guardrails

If people need to get onto the roof more than once, the rooflights want dealing with permanently rather than with a sheet of ply and a warning shout.

We supply two approaches. Rooflight covers are designed for metal profile roofs and sit over the panel, keeping the daylight coming through while removing the fall risk. Freestanding skylight guardrails fence the rooflight off instead, and don’t penetrate the roof membrane — which matters if the covering is under warranty or you don’t want new fixings through a sheet roof. They suit square and rectangular rooflights and dome lights.

Both are supplied as components, so they go up the ladder in pieces and get assembled on the roof. Measure the rooflight, send us the dimensions with a photo or drawing and the roof type, and we’ll configure it and quote.

Building A Permanent Guardrail From Key Clamp And Tube

Size 7 (42.4mm) and size 8 (48.3mm) tube cover most guardrail and handrail work. Fittings are bolt-down and assembled with a hex key, so there’s no welding and no hot works — which matters on a building with straw, hay or fuel in it. Nothing needs a fabricator, and the structure can be altered later if the layout changes.

Where a farm building has a plant deck, a mezzanine, a roof access point or a run of fragile panels that needs permanently fencing off, key clamp fittings and galvanised tube are a practical way to build it.

Our bolt-down handrail kits are supplied at a finished height of 1100mm, above the 950mm Schedule 2 minimum, and are configured for the 0.74 kN/m and 1.5 kN/m loading categories set out in BS 6180 for barriers in and about buildings. Everything is hot-dip galvanised to BS EN ISO 1461, which is what you want on an exposed farm building.

Toeboards, self-closing gates, box bolts and fixings are stocked alongside the fittings. Tube is cut to length free of charge before despatch, so it arrives ready to bolt together.

Perimeter Edge Protection An Farm Roofs

For perimeter protection on a flat or low-pitch roof, we stock freestanding and fixed roof edge protection kits for trade supply.

If you’re pricing a freestanding system, BS 13700:2021 Permanent counterweighted guardrail systems — Specification is the standard to check it against. It covers wind loading, counterweight design and testing for systems that sit on the roof rather than fix through it. Confirm what the roof structure will carry before you order — a counterweighted run puts real load on the deck.

Who Carries The Duty

Under CDM 2015, a farmer commissioning building work on their premises is the client, and the contractor doing the work is responsible for planning it and providing a safe system of work. That responsibility doesn’t transfer to whoever supplied the materials.

Fisher Alvin is a supply-only stockist. We’ll help you pick the right fittings and tube sizes, configure a rooflight cover or guardrail from your measurements, cut tube to length free of charge, and get it to you next day. What we can’t do is design your site, inspect your roof or decide whether a particular structure will carry a guardrail — that sits with you, your installer and your competent adviser.

Get A Quote

Tell us the sizes and lengths and we’ll quote within the hour during working hours. For rooflight covers and skylight guardrails, send your rooflight dimensions, a photo and the roof type.

Call 01905 779944 or request a quote.

Sources and further reading

• HSE press release: Building contractor fined after employee fell through a fragile roof
• HSE: Falls from height in agriculture
• HSE: Working at height — a brief guide (INDG401)
• HSE: Work-related fatal injuries in Great Britain, 2025/26
• Legislation: The Work at Height Regulations 2005

Published 12 August 2026 by the Fisher Alvin team. Last reviewed 12 August 2026. This article is general guidance on product selection and is not a substitute for a site-specific risk assessment by a competent person.