HSE puts spotlight on farm safety

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has begun an inspection campaign which will visit over 100 farms in Yorkshire over the course of the next month.

Visits to farms in Harrogate, York and Leeds are being conducted to check their approach to safety in the work place.

The initiative is a follow up to a Safety and Health Awareness Day held on the Great Yorkshire Showground in September at which 250 of the region's farmers attended.

Julian Franklin, HSE inspector, said: "The event in September was a great success. It gave us an opportunity to speak to a large number of farmers in one place at one time, many of them from just the small family enterprises that most lack health and safety advice."

Inspectors will be hoping to contact those who could not attend in September and examine how work on fragile roofs, with ladders and all-terrain vehicles is handled as well as looking at safeguards.

According to the HSE, agriculture has one of the highest fatality rates of all industries in the UK.

Find out more about health and safety at work