A large Herefordshire strawberry grower has been given a ticking-off for running a potentially unsafe loading yard.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) served an improvement notice on Homme Soft Fruit of Hom Green southwest of Ross-on-Wye.

This said the company had “failed to ensure that their loading yard at the rear of the packhouse is organised in such a way that pedestrians and vehicles, including forklift trucks, can circulate safely, so far as is reasonably practicable”.

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This failure put the company in breach of two clauses of the Health and Safety At Work Act and also of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, the HSE found.

Homme Soft Fruit has until September 24 to comply with the notice.

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The firm is part of E C Drummond, one of the UK’s ten largest fruit growers, according to industry source Horticulture Week.

It packs 2,000 tonnes of strawberries each year, grown from April to November on so-called table-tops across 47 hectares of polytunnels.

At its solar-powered packhouse, fruit is rapidly cooled, automatically weighed, then sealed and labelled for same-day dispatch to supermarkets.