WARNINGS have been issued after a two-year-old boy tragically drowned on farmland.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) spokesman said the ‘initial notification’ was that the boy drowned in slurry.

It comes on the back of new HSE data which showed agriculture, forestry and fishing was the ‘main industry group’ with the most deaths per 100,000 workers - at 5.96 - in Great Britain for the year 19/20.

A spokeswoman for Lancashire Constabulary said police were initially called to reports that a boy had been found ‘unresponsive in water’ at an address off Long Level, near the hamlet of Ireby.

The spokeswoman said emergency services attended and the boy was taken to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary for treatment but died a short time later.

“The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be passed to HM coroner,” she said.

“Our thoughts are with the boy’s family at this sad and difficult time.”

A spokesman for the HSE said the death had been treated as ‘work-related’ but that this would be ‘subject to further assessment’.

Although the exact causes of the incident on June 27 which led to the tragedy are unknown, the HSE offered some safety messages to members of the Agricultural Industry Advisory Committee, which provides the HSE with industry input to improve safety in farming, and the cross-organisation Farm Safety Partnership.

The HSE stressed that working areas of the farm were ‘hazardous like any other workplace’ and that children needed to be ‘kept away and kept safe’, offering the following instructions:

- Children must not be allowed in the farm workplace (young children should enjoy outdoor space in a secure fenced area).

- Any access to the work area by children under 16, for example for education, knowledge, or experience, must be planned and fully supervised by an adult not engaged in any work activity.

- Steps should be taken to prevent unauthorised people, such as children, gaining access to slurry pits or stores. Where necessary, the slurry pit should be surrounded with child-deterrent fencing, gates or covers.