Regular inspections that could potentially save children's lives are on the cards as Tauranga City Council prepares to check out 4000 private swimming pool fences.

A formerly confidential audit was made public this week, revealing it is fencing around older pools that's likely to need work.

Regular pool fence inspections could potentially save lives. Photo: File.

The audit was undertaken ahead of an expected, government-imposed requirement to begin inspecting fences, as council would take some of the blame if a child was to drown in an unfenced or poorly fenced pool within the city.

Risk specialist Jeremy Boase has revealed that risks arise in spite of requirements of the law, which state council must take reasonable steps to ensure the law is adhered to within the city.

The internal audit states private swimming pools which have recently been through the building consent process can be considered to be at low risk of non-compliance with the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987.

An audit of 20 recently-consented private swimming pools by Terry Wynyard of Wynyard Dispute Resolution, resulted in the inspection of seven pools. He says 95 per cent of the selected pools comply.

'I found what appears to be two interesting trends,” says Terry.

More often than not, consent applications for pools and fences fell into the ‘good' category of information provided.

However, where applications related to a more complex consent, such as a new house or significant alterations, the level of information was often considered poor.

'Typically, I found statements such as ‘selected 1200mm high pool fence and self-closing gate with 1.5m high pool lock' on site plans submitted with the building consent application,” says Terry.

'I can only assume it is statements such as this that TCC has relied on to grant consent given the absence of detailed pool fence information.”

Of the seven properties visited, all pool fences complied with the building code to the extent required by the Building Act 2004 and the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987, says Terry's report.

Irrespective of the quality of information provided with the building consent application for a pool fence, he found the workmanship of the finished pool fences was of a high quality.

The information from the audit will help with the roll-out of the city-wide project to assess compliance.

No community engagement is planned over the result of the internal audit, but significant community engagement is planned regarding home-owners' and occupiers' responsibilities under the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987.