PLAYGROUND manufacturer Playdale has been ordered to make changes after the health safety watchdog said workers could face being injured.

The Health and Safety Executive said it had found three breaches of the law and served the Haverthwaite-based company with an improvement notice.

The company, which builds playground equipment and exports it around the world, has taken 'expert advice' since the visit by HSE inspectors.

The watchdog said the company failed to ensure effective measures were in place in relation to routers in the timber workshop 'to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery, namely the rotating router bit, which could lead to personal injury'. 

There was also a failure to provide a 'readily accessible emergency stop control for the Dewalt routers in the timber workshop', HSE said.

The watchdog also said there was a failure to prevent or adequately control employees being exposed to a 'substance hazardous to health' in the form of wood dust.

"Hand sanders and a Wadkin table saw were observed without adequate extraction and supplementary Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE) was not worn correctly, and had not been fit tested to the wearer," the notice,

"Wood dust has been classified as a known cause of occupational asthma."

The company's president Barry Leahey said Playdale would comply with the notice ahead of HSE's deadline of January 20.

"We have been using a machine for many years with no accidents or reported near misses, audited annually by an external health and safety body and never raised by our previous full-time health and safety managers, however on a routine visit the HSE have asked for modifications," he said.

"The good news we have used things like 3D printing by our engineers after taking expert advice to come up with solutions, all of which will be in place by January deadline." 

According to Playdale's website, the company employs 110 people and has created more than 20,000 play areas in 47 countries across the world.

Playdale Playgrounds Ltd began trading in 1978 but the family business dates back to 1735, having passed through nine generations of the Croasdale family.