Swimming Pool Scene AQUATIC PLAY
MULTI AWARD-WINNING RIBBY HALL
ABOVE: The exterior of the water slide, which passes outside the building, at the Wet N Wild Waterpark in North Shields, the North East’s largest indoor water park.
“It’s important to keep water play areas fresh and appealing. Hippo Leisure’s modular play equipment, including water factories, interactive masts and play platforms are all extremely versatile products and can be expanded or updated to help to encourage regular, repeat visitors. Our ‘interactive waterballs’ are a very popular feature in our installations, including the Basingstoke Aquadrome in Hampshire.”
Pitfalls to definitely avoid in your aqua play installations include bad design, poor communication, lack of specification and not having specific time scales. “The overall key to success is synergy!” emphasises Tim from Cresta Leisure.
SAFETY FIRST
While there are no swimming pool-specific health and safety laws, the HSE states that swimming pool operators are legally required to protect the health and safety of workers and pool users. Specifically, they must comply with the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and associated regulations. A visit to a swimming pool should be an enjoyable experience, so operators need to protect pool users from real risk without wrongly restricting beneficial pool activities. HSE’s risk management principles are therefore also important in swimming pool management. Operators must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the health and safety risks to workers and users to help decide what they must do to make their pool safe. This is known as risk assessment. The law doesn’t state what specific safety measures an operator must put in place – these judgements must be made by each operator, based on the particular risks in their pool. More information on the law can be found in Managing health and safety in swimming pools.
“Health and safety should be a key part of the design,” Simon Smith concludes: “You must ensure the equipment is safe to use for the age range it’s attracting, as well as being safe for staff who need to access the equipment.” ■
36 Swimming Pool Scene AQUATIC PLAY
World Leisure recently completed a £1.5m overhaul of the swimming pool facilities at Ribby Hall Village Holiday Park in Lancashire scooping the project an astonishing four Gold Awards at the UK Pool & Spa Awards 2017. The holiday park’s pool, used by members and visitors alike, is well known for its water slides and was opened by members of the TV Gladiators in 1997. It was given a refurbishment eight years ago but bosses at the attraction decided the time was right for a complete revamp, with added facilities to maintain excitement and interest for visitors.
The new pool features new slides including a 48m interactive play slide. Members and guests can climb a tower to the top of the slide, which then takes them out of the building and back inside again. As they come down the slide, they can play an interactive touchpad game on the inside of the slide, with scores recorded once the ride is complete. Scores can be uploaded to social media platforms, with the top three scores displayed in the pool area. World Leisure also refurbished the splash pool and added an interactive aqua deck play structure, with tipping buckets and integral slides. A themed GRP (Glass Reinforced Polyester) toddlers’ pool links into the splash pool, with a slide and steps to open the pools up to all ages. World Leisure also installed a new sauna, steam room and feature showers, with all new filtration and controls. Mark Leech, senior manager of Ribby Hall Village, said: “It is important as a business to continually invest and improve the facilities we offer to our customers. We believe the new interactive slide and new splash pool features will be real talking points that will bring family visitors back again and again.”
ABOVE: Exiting the 48m interactive play slide at Ribby Hall Village Holiday Park in Lancashire. The slide takes visitors out of the building and back inside again.
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