Public pool security fences may be illegal

High barbed wire-topped security fences will have to be replaced by childproof fences at some Hastings public swimming pools after a warning from the crown solicitor that the fences are illegal.

The warning has implications for councils nationwide, who have generally regarded municipal pools as exempt from the 1987 Fencing of Swimming Pools Act, which requires childproof fences around private pools.

The crown solicitor says there is no exemption from the law for public pools.

Councillors have been told they will have to spend $129,000 on new fencing to replace or supplement the 2.1-metre-high mesh and barbed wire security fences designed to keep children and adult intruders out of Splash Planet and the Frimley Aquatic Centre.

The existing fences fail the pool fencing test in several ways, the main one being the use of wire mesh wide enough to allow children to get a foothold and climb it.

"Some of this is nuts, when someone tells me we're going to have to put 1.2-metre fences around the pools. We're getting caught up in something here," Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule said. Mr Yule, who is also president of Local Government New Zealand, said there could be thousands of public pools with illegal fencing in New Zealand.

A former public pool at Windsor Park in Hastings, now leased by Karamu High School, will also need new fencing.

Councillors were told that the pool's security fence was regularly cut so that big groups could break in for a weekend swim.

The school will have to upgrade the perimeter fence at an estimated cost of $15,000 or the council will terminate the lease and empty the pool.

Councillor Mick Lester asked how safety would be improved by a 1.2-metre fence that people could "toss children over".

Councillor Cynthia Bowers said the council would be hypocritical if it tried to avoid a law everyone else had to comply with.

Coroner Chris Devonport raised the matter of pool fencing recently at an inquest into the death of 25-year-old early childhood teacher Sheree Robson at the Havelock North public pools a year ago.

Ms Robson had climbed a 1.8-metre fence around the pools on her way home from a night out. She had been drinking and had taken BZP party pills.

Council planner Antoinette Campbell said yesterday the crown solicitor's opinion, sought by police investigating Ms Robson's death, was that the council's pool fencing breached the law, and it could be prosecuted.

- © Fairfax NZ News