Waipu camp ground bans paddling pools

Camp Waipu Cove bans kiddies' paddling pools; critic says it's health and safety gone mad. Photo / 123RF

In a decision which at least one camper describes as ''health and safety gone mad'' Camp Waipu Cove is banning kiddies' paddling pools.

A recent newsletter sent to regular and booked campers told them the new ban on plastic pools was for practical as well as safety reasons.

Camp Waipu Cove Trust chairman John Henderson said the decision made it easier to comply with Whangarei District safety and pool bylaws.

With a ban on paddling pools at the local camping ground more parents might cool their infants off in the sea at Waipu Cove. Photo/File

However, the ban was mostly in response to growing complaints by other campers about the number of plastic pools strewn around.

Mr Henderson said in recent summers around 10 per cent of about 1500 holidaymakers brought paddling pools to the camp.

''In the past, people put them out and we didn't really have a policy but these days that's about 150 pools, it's a lot and it's a potentially dangerous situation.''

As well as the fear a small child might drown if they stumbled into an unattended pool, people negotiating the camping ground at night tripped over pools.

Asking people to empty the pools every night was not an option because of the amount of water wasted, Mr Henderson said.

Pools holding water deeper than 40cm must be fenced, and some portable pools were capable of holding that amount.

It was unfair to expect camp staff to measure or police the pools, Mr Henderson said.

One man whose family has camped at Waipu Cove for many years — since his own children used paddling pools — told the Northern Advocate: ''The Camp Waipu Cove reserve board have taken health and safety to a whole new level.''

''If the lead-up to summer is anything to go by weather-wise, then there are going to be a lot of small babies and infants overheating if they don't have a way of cooling off,'' he said.

''Paddling pools are much safer than taking the small ones into the surf, where most of the drownings occur.

Fergus Brown, chief executive of the national association Holiday Parks NZ, said many facilities now had their own permanent paddling pools to avoid the problem having hundreds of paddling pools caused.

''It really is up to the individual park's rules, we don't tell our members they can or can't allow all these little pools to be brought in.

''You feel like the grinch at Christmas sometimes but you just have to make the call about safety and responsibility.''