A joinery firm in south east London has been fined £14,000 for health and safety failings, including putting its workers at risk of exposure to wood dust.
Sidcup-based DLD Joinery Limited was inspected by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in May 2022 as part of the workplace regulator’s Dust Kills campaign, which targets woodworking businesses due to the significant health risks associated with wood dust.
During the inspection at the firm’s site on Powerscroft Road, Footscray, the HSE inspector identified multiple failings related to control of exposure to wood dust, including excessive levels of settled dust around the site, as well as unguarded woodworking machinery and unclean toilets.
Some of the company’s local exhaust ventilation (LEV) systems, which are used to extract wood dust at source during machining of wood, were damaged, and the arrangements to clean up residual wood dust not captured by these systems were ineffective.