Thousands of WA pools overdue for inspection

THE City of Mandurah is more than 220 pool safety inspections overdue, according to a new State Government report.

The Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety’s inaugural report on private swimming pool safety barrier inspections showed 3632 of the state’s 159,183 pools were overdue for their four-yearly inspection as of June 30.

The City of Mandurah is third on the list with 227 overdue inspections in 2017-2018, according to the report.

Cockburn topped the list with 1463 overdue inspections in 2017-18 – 1000 more than the Shire of Broom which ranked second with 444.

But City of Mandurah chief executive Mark Newman said the council had been working hard to finalise overdue inspections as well as keeping up with other properties that had become due for inspection.

“We currently have 140 properties overdue for inspection and most of these are not from the original group – they have only just become overdue as a result of the additional time spent inspecting the original overdue group,’’ he said.

“Of the current 140, we have attempted to gain access, left messages and posted requests to 78 of these properties who we are still waiting on to allow us access.

“This leaves 62 pools we will be contacting within the next two weeks and all of which we hope to have inspected before the end of the year.”

Mr Newman said one of the biggest problems and time consumers was owners not contacting the council after it had attempted several times to contact and gain access to their property to inspect the pool barrier.

He said the City had to obtain a warrant to enter 16 properties for required inspections so far this year.

“It should also be noted the City of Mandurah has around 5000 swimming pools and that the percentage of pools needing to be checked is less than three per cent so to compare the raw numbers is perhaps a little unfair,’’ he said.

Building Commissioner Ken Bowron said the number of overdue inspections had “dropped significantly” from the 8639 recorded when the figures were last collected in 2014-15.

“The Building Commissioner’s inaugural progress report on local governments’ compliance with pool inspections follows a key recommendation from last year’s Ombudsman Western Australia investigation report on child drowning,” he said.

“The Ombudsman’s focus on this important issue, including swimming pool barrier compliance, may have contributed to improved outcomes.”

Overdue inspections 2017/18

City of Cockburn 1463 City of Canning 420 City of Mandurah 227 City of Gosnells 118 Shire of Peppermint Grove 85 City of South Perth 55 City of Fremantle 50 City of Joondalup 41 City of Vincent 40 Town of Cottesloe 39 Town of Mosman Park 29 Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale 29 City of Nedlands 28 City of Kalamunda 26 Town of Victoria Park 8 City of Melville 7 City of Kwinana 3 Shire of Murray 3 City of Perth 1 City of Armadale 0 Town of Bassendean 0 City of Bayswater 0 City of Belmont 0 Town of Cambridge 0 Town of Claremont 0 Town of East Fremantle 0 City of Rockingham 0 City of Stirling 0 City of Subiaco 0 City of Swan 0 City of Wanneroo 0