SWIMMING pools were yesterday the latest issue to be passed through the prism of European Union harmonisation, with government calls for an island-wide clean up of health and safety regulations.
The Ministry of Interior has sent a request to the Attorney-general to ask for an international swimming pool expert to initiate a national investigation into what’s going right and what’s wrong in the island’s pool regulations.
The government believes over 600 public swimming pools could fail international standards.
A report in Politis yesterday put the figure at 725, citing 20 pools in Nicosia, 55 in Larnaca, 128 in Limassol, 188 in Paphos and 274 in the Famagusta district.
The only reported prosecution of a swimming pool owner for not meeting licence requirements was in September 1998.
The Ministry is calling for the law to be revised in order to embrace British health and safety standards – in the government’s opinion, the highest in the world. They also want to consult Australian expertise on day-to-day running of water parks – a fast growing tourist attraction in Cyprus.
But the government was yesterday unwilling to admit there were big practical problems with swimming pools as they operate at the moment.
One source said they got persistently good reports from British tourist organisations.
Ayia Napa municipality yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that the council checked each of the 157 pools in its district every year, adding they were confident that all complied with current regulations on water, hygiene and equipment.
Public Health Inspector Lakis Anthousis yesterday confirmed that the Health Ministry granted health certificates to pools lying outside municipal boundaries.
Anthousis said standards of pool cleanliness on the island were high.
But the general manager of the Aphrodite Water Park, Andreas Nicolaou, yesterday claimed his was the only properly licensed pool in Paphos.
He said the park tested the quality of the water weekly and that the municipality conducted frequent hygiene checks.
The new legislation aims to synchronise the current regulations and ensure that all meet EU standards.
Government estimates hope the new law could be drawn up within six months of the expert’s advisory visit – for which applications of tender will be invited after the Attorney-general’s office has reviewed the matter.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
