I am working somewhere there is a commercial swimming pool and they have been told by an external company that they require a fence of more than 1.8m around their outdoor pool to prevent unauthorised access. Does anyone know where I can check this information please?  I cannot find a specified height, merely the words "preventing unauthorised access".

Hi C Larkins

Your first post on these Forums, so welcome!

I don't think you are likely to find any authoritative guidance that sets a magic number for fencing of outside pools to prevent unauthorised access.

So, it will come down to an assessment of the risk to decide what is and is NOT "reasonably practicable" in terms of fencing, if ANY + ALSO what is "reasonable" in terms of Occupier's Liability.

You might the following to be of help in pointing you to sources of guidance. Guide to public safety on flood and coastal risk management sites - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Rule of thumb for a construction site would be 2m.

Minimum height of edge protection for a new build or alteration of a structure would be 1100mm, but that is aimed at stopping someone falling from that point, not to prevent access beyond the edge protection.

.....and if you were designing say a bridge over a road, then the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges Standards For Highways sets various heights for edge protection depending of the nature of the traffic across the bridge, hence requiring edge protection to be higher if e.g. the bridge is used by cattle or horses and I think 1.8m is one of the heights specified.

There are, of course, plenty of spaces of open water that have NO fencing.

As are the vertical gaps and rails:

- too wide and small bodies can squeeze through

- too weak and rent a yob will be demonstrating their strength creating larger openings.

Time for my favourite thing: a stupid question!

What do you mean by a “commercial swimming pool”? Is it one attached to a hotel or similar resort? In that case you would expect good access control and a fence, of whatever height is not really relevant. Is it a lido, a stand alone swimming pool? In case there would be some way of issuing and checking tickets and inevitably this would keep out the riff raff and ensure (non-paying) idiots do not get into the pool with the intention of hurting themselves.

Or is the pool just in the middle of a field, with nobody looking after it in which case how does it count as a “commercial   pool” ?

Finally, is the external company a manufacturer or supplying of fencing? If the answer is yes, then it’s not surprising that they are promoting their products and making up regulations.