Swimming pool bans floats for health & safety reasons

A swimming pool has stopped issuing water wings and floats – for health and safety reasons. The flotation aids are designed to keep children safe from drowning, but staff at Waterworld in Prudhoe have been told not to hand them out.

Bosses at North Country Leisure, which runs the Northumberland pool, said inflatables and floats could pass on infections. It then emerged Leisure Connection, which manages swimming pools in Ponteland and Castle Morpeth, operated a similar policy.

But Hexham MP Peter Atkinson, whose constituency includes Waterworld, dismissed it as a ridiculous “directive from the Health and Safety commissars”.



A parent, who did not want to be named, said he was stunned when staff refused to hand over any swimming aids for his five-year-old son. The dad said he had never encountered a problem before when asking for a float, but was told health and safety rules meant he could not have one.

He said: “I believe swimming is an important skill and I’ve been taking him along to the pool every couple of weeks or so. There had never been a problem borrowing one of these things before so I was amazed when they refused me.

“I pointed out to the staff that surely it is more of a health and safety issue if the child sinks because he hasn’t got a float. I was just gobsmacked by this.”