Bouncy Castles - what to do
Jul 6, 2011
We are now in the summer months, allegedly, and many of you will be thinking of ingenious ways to keep children happy whilst their parents spend money buying Caravans, Holiday Homes or Motor Homes.
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, assuming they are willing to provide cover, will impose certain conditions on its use which will, broadly speaking, be along the following lines:-
- 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
