A private company which specialises in the inspection of playgrounds and play equipment – Play Safety Malta was launched this morning.

The company, which operates under licence from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa), will offer its services to anyone who has play equipment and carries a public liability insurance and professional indemnity insurance of around €6 million.

David Yearley, the head of Rospa PlaySafety Ltd, spoke about the importance of inspecting playgrounds to make them as safe as necessary and not as safe as possible.

The aim, he said, was to ensure that preventable accidents were prevented and that there was no unsafe equipment which led to a child serious injury or death. A balance has to be kept between having safe equipment and allowing some form of risk, for that was how children learnt.

He said that although the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority launched national guidelines for playgrounds and started carrying out annual inspections, the country's history showed that playgrounds had not really been a priority.

"The trend is to install and forget. But when a child wants to play on a swing, he does not stay thinking about whether the chain might snap."

Lands Minister Jason Azzopardi stressed the right of children to play in a safe area and pointed out that the company will employ three full time inspectors.

Councils Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici spoke about responsibility to ensure that areas were safe. He said that funds to local councils which applied to benefit from a scheme for playground funds, would be handed out next week.