Family of gran who died after Pontins collapse want firm ‘held to account’

The son of a woman who died six months after an air conditioning duct fell on guests at a Pontins resort in Somerset has told the BBC he wants answers.

Police say a post mortem found a clear link between Wendy Jones’s death in 2019 and the injuries she sustained.

Pontins’ owners, a Britannia Hotels subsidiary, said the collapse was “an unfortunate accident that could not reasonably have been predicted”.

Separately, staff at the chain accuse the company of neglecting former sites.

Nine members of staff told the BBC they felt discouraged from flagging health and safety issues.

James Havard-Jones – the son of Mrs Jones, 68 – said Pontins should be “held to account” over the incident at Brean Sands Holiday Park.

A statement by the company’s owners – a Britannia Hotels subsidiary named “Jinky Jersey” – said it was because of a failure of internal fixings that could not be checked.

An ex-manager at the resort says that he informed Pontins’ head office he feared the ceiling would collapse because of sound insulation that he believed had been installed unsafely – and a report requested by the ex-manager raised concerns.

Mrs Jones had been at the Brean Sands site’s entertainment centre – the Fun Factory – when the ducting and part of the ceiling collapsed on to the families below. Eighteen people, including Mrs Jones, were injured.

“I’ve been told it sounded like an explosion,” her son, James Havard-Jones, says. “My mum was underneath the debris, crushed.”

Mrs Jones spent the last six months of her life in hospital before she died on 4 August 2019. Avon and Somerset Police said a post-mortem examination found a “clear link” between the injuries she had sustained in the accident and her subsequent death.

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue said the incident involved the collapse of approximately 40m (131ft) of structural ducting and ceiling sections, exposing live damaged electrics.

Avon and Somerset Police’s investigation into her death is continuing.

A spokesman said: “Detectives remain open-minded about the cause of the ducting collapse and continue to provide updates to Mrs Jones’ family about what is an extremely complex inquiry.”

The force confirmed corporate manslaughter, health and safety and gross negligence offences were being considered.

The BBC has been told that Britannia’s head office was warned that the ceiling’s safe load may have been exceeded in places and that this could have put it at risk of collapse in a report three years before Mrs Jones’s death, shortly after the sound insulation was fitted.

It had been required at the Fun Factory because neighbours had complained about the noise from discos and music nights held there.

Mick Forster, who was general manager at the site until summer 2016, says he had worried about the safety of the ceiling from the moment it had been installed – and had told owners at head office he believed it was unsafe and needed replacing.

Mr Forster said his dissatisfaction with the installation was a factor that led him to resign.

However, Pontins’ owners dispute Mr Forster’s version of events.

In a statement, Jinky Jersey said the ventilation duct fell because of the failure of some internal fixings that had been installed years before Britannia bought the site. The company said the fixings were not capable of being seen on visible inspections and regular checks by the head of maintenance revealed no maintenance issues.

The owners say the insulation was installed in 2015 by a “a specialist contractor with a long history of working at the Brean Sands park”.

Mr Forster says he challenged workers carrying out the installation, but was told by Britannia’s head office that he was interfering and should leave them alone. He claims he was even told by someone at head office – using expletives – to “shut my mouth”.

He says he became so concerned about the work he spoke to head office to ask for a structural engineer to assess its safety.

Britannia’s management agreed and an independent report from a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors-registered surveyor was conducted in January 2016.

The BBC has obtained a copy of the report, which did not include a specific survey of the safe load limits of the suspend ceiling.

However, it read: “Our conclusion is that the recent installation has not been safely or adequately installed and the safe load for the existing suspended ceiling may have been exceeded, which could result in a collapse of the ceiling in a public area.”

It also recommended appointing a structural surveyor to check the loading to the ceiling grid over the dance floor.

Mr Forster says this was not done before he left in August 2017.

The original surveyor who wrote the report has also confirmed they had no further correspondence with Britannia.

Mr Forster says that the report would have been sent to Britannia’s head office. In all, it made seven recommendations, including removing some of the insulation material and installing additional hangars to hold it in place.

Pontins’ owners say the findings related solely to the ceiling grid over the dancefloor – which was “a totally different location” from the part of the ceiling that collapsed – and that the only concerns regarding the ventilation duct were that that insulation material that was installed was unsightly.

The owners also say the findings were considered carefully and that additional ceiling supports were installed which provided “reassurance as to their diligence”.

The owners of Pontins also told the BBC of an engineer’s report commissioned in 2017 that had raised “no concern at all about safety in relation to the works”. Jinky Jersey also said there had been no concerns about the fixings, the pipework or the lightweight plasterboard boxing-in reported to any senior manager prior to the collapse.

Pontins Brean Sands is currently leased to energy company EDF to house contractors building Hinkley Point Power Station. As part of the contract EDF has confirmed it will invest £2m into the site to “leave it in a better condition for future holiday use”.

In the five years since the incident, Mrs Jones’s family has never received any correspondence from Britannia head office.

“They could’ve shown some humility, some decency, some humanity,” her son Mr Havard-Jones says.

In the statement, Pontins owners said: “It has not been appropriate for us to seek to locate and engage with Mrs Jones’s family at this time.”

Britannia, which bought Pontins out of receivership in 2011, also runs more than 60 hotels across England, Wales and Scotland.

One of the most well-known is the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, where the BBC has learned Britannia is undergoing a second health and safety investigation following the death of a young woman in 2022.

Chloe Haynes was found dead in September 2022 in her room at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.

Liverpool City Council confirmed that it is conducting a health and safety investigation after a referral from Merseyside Police.

Britannia has been named by consumer group Which? as the “worst hotel chain” for 11 consecutive years. Pontins has also been awarded the title of “worst holiday park” in the same survey.