The Grocer Was Fined. Then the Landlord Was Too: Who Owns the Shared Loading Bay?

In December 2023 a worker from a grocery business walked into the shared loading bay at Springvale Shopping Centre to collect a delivery. A forklift was moving a load 1.4 metres high that blocked the operator's view. The worker was crushed against a pallet and suffered three broken ribs. In January this year the grocer was fined $43,000 without conviction over training failures. On 28 October the shopping centre's owners corporation was also convicted in Dandenong Magistrates' Court of failing to ensure a workplace it managed and controlled was safe. It was fined $60,000 plus $28,159 in costs.

A Duty That Doesn't Depend on Employing Anyone

The injured worker did not work for the owners corporation. The forklift driver probably did not either. That did not matter. The owners corporation managed and controlled the loading bay, so it carried its own duty to make that space safe. The same idea exists in every WHS jurisdiction for whoever manages or controls a workplace.

This is one of the easiest duties to overlook because it sits between businesses. Every tenant assumes the landlord looks after the common areas. The landlord assumes each tenant manages its own people. The loading bay belongs to everyone, which in practice can mean nobody manages it.

Ask yourself if you own or manage a shared site:

• Which spaces do you control that several businesses use? Loading docks, car parks, service corridors and waste areas all count.
• Is there a traffic management plan for each of them?
• Are pedestrian walkways, loading zones and exclusion zones actually marked on the ground?
• Do tenants and their delivery drivers know the rules for those spaces?

The 2019 Report That Changed Everything

The detail that stands out in this case is a document. In 2019 an independent risk assessment had identified the loading bay risks and the controls needed. When the incident happened four years later there was still no traffic management plan, no pedestrian walkways, no marked loading zones and no exclusion zones.

That report was meant to be protection. In court it became evidence. It showed the risk was known and the controls were known. It showed they were not put in place. A risk assessment that sits in a drawer does more than fail to help you. It proves you knew.

Ask yourself about your own risk assessments:

• Do you have consultant reports or audits with recommendations nobody has closed out?
• Is there an action register with owners and due dates for each recommendation?
• If a recommendation was rejected, is the reason written down and defensible?
• Who reviews that register and how often?

Tenants Have Questions to Ask Too

The grocer was also fined, so this is not just a landlord story. If your workers use a space you do not control, you still have to train and instruct them for the risks they will meet there. You also have a duty to consult and coordinate with the other duty holders.

• Have you asked your landlord for the traffic management plan for the loading area?
• Do your workers know where they can and cannot walk when a forklift is operating?
• Have you raised unsafe conditions in writing so there is a record of the request?

One Thing to Do This Week

Find the oldest open recommendation in any risk assessment, audit or consultant report you hold. Either close it, schedule it with a named owner or write down why it will not be done. Then do the same for the next one. The Springvale case shows the gap between a known risk and an implemented control is exactly where liability lives.

If your last risk assessment were read out in court tomorrow, would it show what you did, or only what you knew?