A Palmerston North property owner has been fined $32,000 after repeatedly ignoring orders to stop work on a building containing asbestos.<\/p>\n
Sanal Lonappan failed to cease work in the contaminated area and also removed warning notices.<\/p>\n
Lonappan was sentenced in the Palmerston North District Court after continuing refurbishment work in defiance of a prohibition notice requiring activity at the site to cease.<\/p>\n
WorkSafe said it first issued notices in May 2022 over concerns of the presence of asbestos. <\/p>\n
Inspectors later found work continuing in breach of those orders, with Lonappan also removing official notices posted at the building\u2019s entrances and failing to provide requested information.<\/p>\n
WorkSafe area manager Carl Baker said the defiance was “repeated, deliberate, and ultimately unsuccessful”.<\/p>\n
“This was not a one-off lapse. There were multiple chances to engage and put things right. Ignoring our notices did not avoid accountability \u2013 it led to a conviction and a fine.”<\/p>\n
Baker said a prohibition notice meant work must stop immediately.<\/p>\n
“That notice exists because there is a risk of serious harm. It is a legal requirement, not a suggestion.”<\/p>\n
WorkSafe said the risks were significant, with asbestos-containing soffit linings being removed from a canopy directly above a public footpath. <\/p>\n
Disturbing asbestos without proper controls can release fibres into the air, posing a danger to workers and the public.<\/p>\n
Asbestos remained the leading cause of work-related death in New Zealand, linked to around 220 deaths each year, often decades after exposure.<\/p>\n
Lonappan was convicted under multiple provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, including breaching a prohibition notice, failing to assist inspectors and intentionally removing official notices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Palmerston North property owner has been fined $32,000 after repeatedly ignoring orders to stop work on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,134,31044,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-432786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-manawatu-wanganui","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}