risk assessment for seaton and headland paddling pools

[jawsbbc]

 FFS WHAT NEXT GET EMAILING THE LEADER THE KIDS BREAK UP TODAY
Following Eve Duckworth's sad picture of the so far empty paddling pool, I phoned the council. I spoke to a lovely lady, who clarified neither The Headland or Seaton pools will be in use until the school summer holidays.
The decision was made by local councillors as a result of the cuts in the local budget.
"cuts in the budget for water" says I... "well no", says she...
"cuts in the budget for Lifeguards" she replied !!! "Lifeguards for 6" of water" I said... "you gotta be kidding" I said...
She explained - a risk assessment was carried out (not naming names) & in view of the amount of injuries last year, caused by children jumping between the stepping stones, the safety decision requires a Lifeguard on duty. That, plus additional staff for the 'clear-up & checks' nightly, took the costs too high... She did explain to fill both pools they also have to employ someone from 4am as the pools take 4/5hrs to fill...
So the cuts are to blame for the kids having no fun in the sun  😢 I suggest the local councillors for both the Headland & Seaton are paraded along the main streets, placed in stocks & pelted with soggy tomatoes  😉

[SRMoore]

I have been working on this with Cllr Flemming to try and have the paddling pool on the Headland filled.

The initial post you made there is not too far off the mark, though to be fair the lifeguards aren't a requirement for use of the paddling pool as much as it is now apparently in their job description to fill, clean and drain the pool.

Below is an email I sent to the council officer who is responsible for the paddling pools and their reply. This follows previous telephone conversations had over the previous days.

Good morning,

I have attempted to call you a few times today but to no joy. Has your number been changed?

I wanted to try and speak to you quickly to make a proposal regarding the Headland Paddling pool.

After speaking to Cllr Flemming last night we agreed that we would like to assist with this matter if possible and that we would still like the pool filled for this school holiday.

We are asking that the paddling pool be filled today/tomorrow and remain filled until the end of next weekend. This covers the school half term and allows use for families during this period. We are then happy for it to remain empty until the lifeguard cover starts.

We are proposing one of two things. If you can find the manpower to fill the pool, we are happy to cover the costs from our ward members budget. Similarly for when it needs to be emptied and cleaned.

The other option is that myself, Tim and other volunteers would be happy to take on the task of filling, emptying and cleaning for the school holidays if we are given access to the materials needed to do so.

I look forward to hearing back from you and I hope we can have this completed very soon.

Shane

-------------

Dear Cllr Moore,

I very much appreciate your kind offer and the time you took to discuss the issue with myself yesterday. Unfortunately it is not feasible to fill the pool even if we were indeed authorised to do so at this time. As the Council requested in the three year savings programme for Neighbourhoods Division, the service has made the necessary savings and resourced itself for provision of a summer holiday only lifeguard service and paddling pool facilities at Seaton Carew and the Headland.

The outdoor paddling pool commissioning process is one that starts weeks in advance of the desired opening date. The Headland Pool when in use needs regular monitoring and repairs to its surfacing which has a tendency to develop cracks I am led to believe as a result of wave attrition and subsequent sub-surface movement of the sea defences it is built upon, this is further exacerbated by its exposure to the elements. The Seaton pool also develops cracks due to its seaward exposure. As I understand it the pre-season pool surfacing repairs have not been initiated at this point in time as they are not needed to be operational for some time yet. The repair programme is critical if the pools are to be safe to use, cracks not only lead to water penetration under the pool surfacing and further damage, they also present sharp edges with the potential to cut or abrade pool users.

From an operational perspective the outdoor paddling pools are a public facility; those operating them and the associated water circulation plant, need to be qualified and insured to do so and mindful of the water quality monitoring and dosing requirements which involve the handling of substantial quantities of potentially hazardous chemicals. To clean the facility a high pressure wash down is required to remove algal slime build-up at least once, sometimes twice a week depending upon user numbers. This wash down element is a minimum of 2-3 hours work and includes digging out detritus and substantial quantities of sand. Filling the pool is a minimum of 4 hours work and similarly drain down takes approximately 3-4 hours. Our operative will typically attend site late in the evening and begin drain down process. They will then return to site at approximately 4am in the following morning and undertake wash down and begin refill. They tend to leave the pool filling once cleaning is completed so they can continue with other essential duties and return to site later to shut down the refill valve and check water dosing so the pool is ready mid/late morning for use.

Yours sincerely,

----------------

So as you can see we have been trying to have this matter resolved and have looked at various ways of getting it done. We will continue to work on this though I fear we may lose the use of the paddling pool over this bank holiday weekend until we can continue toi make headway when Council officers return to work.

[Land Phil]

So how are they going to afford to run the new water fountains at Seaton Carew if they can't afford to run a paddling pool that doesn't have electric pumps ?

[Inspector Knacker]

I question the time scale of filling the pools and intensity of the cleaning regime. Water treatment in a paddling pool without circulation would be difficult so monitoring the water in such an operating environment would problematic. I also would like to know why any repairs aren't completed before the start of the season, which doesn't start in August.

[jeffh]

Dear Cllr Moore,

I very much appreciate your kind offer and the time you took to discuss the issue with myself yesterday. Unfortunately it is not feasible to fill the pool even if we were indeed authorised to do so at this time. As the Council requested in the three year savings programme for Neighbourhoods Division, the service has made the necessary savings and resourced itself for provision of a summer holiday only lifeguard service and paddling pool facilities at Seaton Carew and the Headland.

When and where were these cuts approved?  As I don't fully understand the mechanism of this procedure, would they have been proposed at Finance & Policy to inform Neighbourhood Services of the cut or would Neighbourhood Services respond to a request of budget reduction and inform Finance & Policy of their proposals.  Either way why are we just finding out now - surely it should have been brought to the attention of the Ward Councillors to allow them to deal with it as necessary.

Maybe Labour can come to the rescue again and the new H&H councillor can pull a few strings in the Kremlin - we clearly saw last Tuesday they wouldn't support UKIP under any circumstances.

[Hartlepudlion]

Was the latest Councillor for H&H present at the two Council Meetings this last week?

[jeffh]

Was the latest Councillor for H&H present at the two Council Meetings this last week?

He was there on the Tuesday - not looking too happy mind you

[jawsbbc]

LAND PHIL exactly it stinks  seaton will be heaving this next week so if  parents need to give your toddlers some water play  time looks like you will have to walk them to the sea edge  to paddle 

[akarjl]

LAND PHIL exactly it stinks  seaton will be heaving this next week so if  parents need to give your toddlers some water play  time looks like you will have to walk them to the sea edge  to paddle 

Well if they actually come...given parking charges?

[fred c]

A couple of Paddling Pool....... that's 2 Paddling Pools..... and this bunch of F**kwits can't even ensure that they are filled with H2O for the half term break.... May Bank Holiday, the kids are off for a week and Cwistipher and his f**ing clowncill aren't capable of filling 2 paddling pools.

This is the council that are proposing to spend £600k on the Seaton Masterplan, you really have to ask the question, if they are incapable of such a simple operation as filling a couple of kids paddling pools, what kind of balls-up will they make of playing with £600,000 pounds of public money.

I don't blame the officers, I really don't, the problem lies with a bunch of councillors who are operating on a plane far in excess of their intellectual capacity, the Cabal wouldn't last more than a week in the private sector before they got the big F**k Off.

[akarjl]

the Cabal wouldn't last more than a week in the private sector before they got the big F**k Off.

Thats why they are NOT in the private sector, as many have said here,most of them are unemployable and a commercial organisation wouldn't even finish reading the s**t they have on their cvs.

I suppose we should be glad they do not charge for beach access.....well not yet anyway.

[mk1]

Thats why they are NOT in the private sector, as many have said here,most of them are unemployable and a commercial organisation

SAB is probably unique in that he is  unemployable in the Public Sector. He left his last-but-one job because it was alleged his overtime claims were ...how shall we put this.....'creative' so he was given the option of jumping before he was pushed. Then at Newcastle he continued his practice of lying and cheating by claiming he needed time off for a relatives funeral when in fact he was on a Council funded jolly to Portsmouth. The bugger even got paid twice for his day out, Expenses from Hartlepool and full pay from Newcastle. He is now on a Public Sector 'blacklist' of dishonest people. The only Council that will even consider him for a position is Hartlepool and even when CAB forced  persuaded an employer in Hartlepool to interview SAB they made sure his application was binned the minute he walked out of the room. The word is out on SAB.

[suvin]

There is a Headland Parish Council meeting on Tuesday night at 18:45. If yourself or Tim or the new councillor (who doesn't exist according to HBC website) could put in an appearance there might be some funding available. The pool is an amenity which is used by an awful lot of families not just from the Headland. The Council, of course, is just using health & safety to stop people enjoying themselves and blaming it on the "cuts".

[mk1]

This is the council that are proposing to spend £600k on the Seaton Masterplan, you really have to ask the question, if they are incapable of such a simple operation as filling a couple of kids paddling pools, what kind of balls-up will they make of playing with £600,000 pounds of public money.

The Council want the Seaton money badly. All sorts of mad-cap schemes are being floated but I am confident that anything that gets built will be 'cheap and nasty' whilst the bulk of the cash will be shifted in Cranney's direction. It will be interesting to see how much latitude he is allowed in redefining 'Seaton Carew' so that it includes the Jutland Road/Catcote Road area.

[Johnny Bongo]

I contacted HBC several weeks ago about the railings behind the Headland pool, which were in such a state that when two youngsters climbed on them (as kids do) the top section literally fell off, leaving jagged, rusty edges.  When I was at the same spot a few weeks later, the broken section had been temporarily 'fixed' with some steel bars, although I didn't get a close up view of this. To be fair to HBC, there seems to be a 'programme' of (at least) painting the railing along the top, as they seem to be in fairly decent condition. It's just a shame that those in charge of the headland paddling pool area have no awareness, both safety and community, regarding the present situation!