Thousands of WA private swimming pools overdue for safety barrier inspections

According to an inaugural report on private swimming pool safety barrier inspections, conducted by the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, 3,632 out of 159,183 private pools were overdue as of June 30.
In Western Australia, private pools should be inspected every four years in accordance with the state legislative requirements.

Same legislations went effective in Victoria in 2018 where registered pools must be inspected for standard safety barriers in place. Read more here.
Over 40 per cent of the states' pools with overdue inspections are located in city of Cockburn, while the Shire of Broome ranked second with about 12 per cent. The overall number however, has dropped to 1396 as of September 2018.

According to the City of Cockburn planning and development services, the high number of overdue safety inspections is because inspectors were not able to access the swimming pool barriers when they attended the property.
Pool safety inspections were conducted every working day and planning and development inspectors have attended every property with a registered pool or spa to within the four-year inspection cycle as required, as of September 2017.

Owners of those pools were advised either via email or a site inspection report to contact inspectors to arrange a further inspection, where access to pool fences were not gained.
These inaugural progress reports on compliance with pool inspections follows a key recommendation from last year's Ombudsman Western Australia investigation report on child drowning.

Source: Cockburn Community Gazette