Staff issues put pool inspections well behind

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

One in four pools in Tairāwhiti are overdue for inspection as Gisborne District Council struggles with staff number issues.

According to information released by the council, there are 561 active pools (including spas) on its books, 142 of which are overdue for a three-yearly inspection.

Of those that are overdue, some required the most recent inspection as long ago as early 2019.

Gisborne District Council building service manager Ian Petty said staffing was a factor in keeping up with the required monitoring.

“Building services is extremely busy at the moment due to the level of building activity in the region, flood recovery, which is ongoing, and a number of new staff in training,” Petty said.

“It is almost impossible to get an experienced building control officer for a vacant position.

“This issue is a national problem and will probably remain an issue for a number of years.”

There was some good news.

Mr Petty said the council was at a “cusp” where onboarded employees were at a point where they could conduct large amounts of work unsupervised.

The issue of pool consents came to the attention of Local Democracy Reporting.

A council finance and performance meeting agenda in April stated there were “very few consented pools on the Coast”.

Mr Petty said it was impossible to know how many were unconsented in the region because they were, by nature, invisible.

“We cannot answer the question of how many pools there are in the region, only how many consented pools (there are).”

The council had been advised by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment that it only needed to inspect pools it knew about. It was not required to actively search for pools.

If it did discover a pool, it would test its compliance and make sure it was or became legal.

Forty-six pools have failed most recent tests while four are undergoing enforcement, meaning the owners have not corrected their non-compliance and could face a fine.

When a pool fails its inspection, it is reinspected after two weeks. If it fails again, the pool is flagged for enforcement.

Meanwhile, rural pools are somewhat off the hook with Mr Petty saying the council would continue to inspect them but only when they could fit them in.

“Some of them involve considerable travel and we are struggling with our business as usual.”