www.swimmingpoolnews.co.uk
PoolSafety JUN 2012 SPN
61
POOL SAFETY ‘SNOWBALLING’ TOWARDS TOUGHER STANDARDS
New incentives to teach more people, especially children, to swim have failed to make inroads into reducing statistics of drownings in swimming pools. New tougher legal standards may be on the way but for now the best solution is persuading pool owners to improve safety around pools by investing in alarms, pool covers and pool fencing
T
he next two years may see the choice taken out of how much swimming pool owners invest in safety around their pools.
Every year, without fail, too many people, mainly children, die in and around swimming pools from drowning incidents. Teaching more children to swim isn’t enough. Now the European Union says the formal adoption of legal requirements for pool safety is ‘snowballing’. It is ‘inevitable’ says the EU that tougher legal demands will be made on private and public pools with the widely held view that its member’s countries will have to adopt regimes similar to those imposed on French pool owners. The first steps towards these measures could be seen as soon as 2014.
All privately owned swimming pools in France must have an approved safety device, conforming to AFNOR, Association Française de Normalisation Standards. All rented properties or properties with a pool must also have a self closing and self
Fencing – the only passive device to guarantee safety says Life Saver Pool fencing
locking gate as part of their fence, to prevent accidental access to the pool by children below the age of five years.
A change in the UK is bound to happen. In the UK, the law on pool safety is not as demanding or strict as it is in France, Spain, Germany, Australia and the United States where the last 10 years has seen much tighter formal controls on pool owners in terms of mandatory pool fencing, lockable access to pools and safety alarms.
There is no UK legislation that relates to the fencing of domestic swimming pools. Health & Safety guidelines and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents both recommend pool fencing but that’s as far as it goes. For while teaching organisations are demanding and investing in better standards of pool education it is clear safety precautions around many private and public pools throughout the UK are leaving too much to chance. Safety measures around pools tend to be
referred to in layers of security from pool alarms, pool safety covers, pool enclosures and at the top pool fencing. Each layer has ranges of products for the safety conscious consumer. But new legal requirements for pool safety could provide a huge market opportunity for such products who are now working to persuade pool owners to increase their safety precautions.
FENCING IS THE ‘ONLY PASSIVE’ SECURITY DEVICE TO GUARANTEE SAFETY Richard Holling from Life Saver Pool Fence believes it is inevitable that stricter legal requirements for pool safety will be imposed on the UK at some stage.
Life Saver Pool Fence has been providing baby, child, and pet safety solutions for residential swimming pools, and in homes, for 20 years and Richard believes swimming pool fencing is the only passive option to guarantee pool safety. The current stringent rules on pool fencing imposed by the French Government can lead to a
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