Bouncy Castles - what to do
Jul 24, 2012
With schools breaking up an influx of children is just round the corner hopefully your park will soon be full of holiday makers ready to have fun, so it’s important to ensure your guests are safe in all areas of your park.
Some of you may go down the route of a Bouncy Castle and if you do you will need to, not only notify your insurers of your plans but also consider the Health & Safety implications of this choice.
In an ideal world you should hire in the bouncy castle with a team of people to run it. This way the actual responsibility for the bouncy castle falls to the business providing it rather than yourselves and you then just need to make sure that they have adequate insurance arrangements in place so if the worst should happen, any liability falls to them rather than you.
Unfortunately the dangers of this type of play apparatus have been graphically highlighted when several children were injured in Whitby when the Bouncy Castle they were on took off in high winds.
If you do decide to go down the route of buying a bouncy castle yourself your insurers may impose certain conditions on its use which may include:
- the boucy castle is to be securely anchored to the floor at all times by using anchor stakes where the ground is suitable, or if the surface isn't suitable, by other means e.g. to a motor vehicle
- further protection from non-inflatable gym mats or equivalent soft loading material of minimum 3cm to 12cm thickness at all open sides/entrances/exits where the surface is hard
- not to be used in high winds i.e. in excess of the maximum safe wind speed for the inflatable as specified by the designer/manufacturer
- to be supervised at all times with a minimum of 2 adults per 15 users
Users of the inflatable are:-
- to remove footwear, spectacles and hazardous or sharp objects
- not to bounce on the apron of the inflatable
- not to hang on the outside walls of the inflatable
- not to be taller than the outside walls when standing on the inflated bouncing surface
- to be limited to a maximum number of children in line with the user guide
For further information please contact:-
