Posted By Joe Ridley Hi there, I would just like some thoughts on the following - I work for a leisure company that manages eight leisure facilities and recently had a question from one of our duty officers regarding the use of personal hairdriers in our swimming facilities. The main question was, should paying customers be allowed to bring in their own hairdriers for personal use in our facilities? By the way we already provide hairdriers for use at a cost of 20p. I said no as if they had an accident while using their hairdrier (ie electric shock) we would be held liable. Am I correct in saying this? Cheers Joe

Posted By Joe Ridley Hi Alan, Just to confirm our own equipment is PAT tested and the areas causing concern are sauna areas in the main where staff supervision levels are operated on half hourly checks. Regarding othe shower areas there are no powerpoints near them. Cheers Joe

Posted By Alec Wood Banning the use of personal dryers while charging for the use of your own is likely to be seen in a bad light by your customers. Surely the costs of use of the dryers can be built into the membership fees - certainly from the fees my local gym charges they could cover me running a dryer all year! Remove the power points from the area of concern, then customers cannot plug in. Power points for cleaners etc can be in secure areas. Hard-wire your dryers into the supply so they cannot be unplugged and another appliance plugged in, similar arrangements can be seen in many hotels. Liability in the event of a mishap is a bit tricky. Certainly one could argue that the owner of the appliance has some liability, but how the court would split the blame is anyone's guess. One possible scenario you should consider is that a customer may leave an dryer plugged in and that dryer may be used by another customer. If they were to suffer an electric shock you would certainly be held liable.