VOTING booths and netball matches were just some of the ways staff at a Somerset council got injured in the past 12 months.

South Somerset District Council has published a list of all health and safety incidents recorded in 2019, broken down by the area in which staff worked and where the incidents took place.

In addition to physical injuries, staff members were threatened with violence on several occasions – including one incident where dog faeces was delivered to the council’s Brympton Way headquarters in Yeovil.

The council has said it is taking steps to ensure its staff and the public are safe in all its offices and facilities.

The report was published before a virtual meeting of the authority’s audit committee on Thursday afternoon (May 14).

Between January 1 and December 31, 2019, council staff were involved in 95 health and safety incidents – of which 43 were officially counted as “accidents”.

The largest single proportion of accidents occurred in the two council-run entertainment venues – the Octagon Theatre and Westlands, both in Yeovil.

There were 14 accidents across the two venues – including burns, slips on the steps leading onto the Octagon stage, and several minor head injuries.

The environmental services team had 12 accidents, including facial injuries sustained in the Petters Way car park, a shoulder injury in the Lufton workshop, and one case of heat exhaustion.

The council’s countryside team – which is responsible for maintaining green spaces and beauty spots – had seven accidents, with staff members injuring their feet and wrists on Ham Hill, straining their legs at Chard Reservoir, tripping in Yeovil Country Park and one “skin reaction to wild vegetation”.

There were also eight accidents at the main council offices in Yeovil, mainly comprising slips and trips, but also including two cases of “minor injuries which occurred during a netball match at Bucklers Mead.”

One staff member was also unlucky enough to sustain finger injuries through the “assembly of polling booths” during the local elections in May 2019.

On top of all of these incidents, there were four serious injuries which were reported to the Health and Safety Executive under its RIDDOR procedures (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations).

These consisted of:

A member of the public who broke their ankle after tripping at Westlands

A member of the public who cut their leg on seating in the auditorium

A staff member injured by a needle while cleaning inside the Octagon Theatre

A staff member who injured their shoulder while loading a “large object” into an environmental services vehicle

There were 24 further incidents involving the public, including 15 slips, trips or falls, one case of “youths fighting”, one dog-on-dog attack and three injuries which “relate to a customer passing out”.

Staff were also on the receiving end of 22 violent incidents – of which 17 were verbal abuse, either in person or over the phone.

There were three incidents where individuals “feared for their physical personal safety” – two in council-run parks and once at the Petters Way office – and one case where a staff member had their car stolen at Chard Reservoir.

Most disturbingly, one staff member had a package left at their office which turned out to contain dog excrement.

There were also two near-misses, both of which involved slipping or tripping on the stairs at Brympton Way.

The total number of incidents (95) is more than 60 per cent higher than the total for the previous calendar year (where there were 58 incidents).

Netta Meadows, the council’s director for service delivery, said in her report that steps were being taken to address this rise and ensure staff safety.

She said: “A protocol for dangerous incidents has been developed, with staff trained and aware of what to do in the event of a serious incident.

“Alarm systems have also been reviewed and put in place where need identified.

“Work has also been identified on dealing with violent persons, and a centralised database and procedure for dealing with those individuals will be launched shortly.”