Dairy firm fined after factory explosion

The boiler house at Aspatria Creamery was partially destroyed in the blast on 29 July 2010. No one was injured despite the force of the explosion lifting the roof off the building and blowing out part of two ground floor walls. The First Milk Cheese Company was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive after an investigation found a blocked vent on the calorifier had caused it to explode. The calorifier held up to 9,000 litres of water and was used to produce hot water for washing down the dairy. Carlisle magistrates heard that maintenance engineers at the plant had been manually controlling the steam supply valve to the calorifier after the automatic control broke down. HSE investigators found the vent pipe had become completely blocked with calcium carbonate, so pressure inside the tank continued to rise as the water temperature reached almost 150 degrees Celsius. The First Milk Cheese Company pleaded guilty to a breach of the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000 by failing to ensure the vent pipe on was kept clear. The Wrexham-based company was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £36,064 in prosecution costs. HSE inspector Michael Griffiths said: "I hope this prosecution will act as a warning to any other company that uses hot water and steam systems to make sure they are properly maintained so that incidents like this don't happen in the future."