By Julian Bajkowski

The New South Wales government has instructed the state’s councils to hold off issuing fines to backyard pool owners that fail to register on the new compulsory Swimming Pool Register after a last minute deluge of online traffic put the regulatory website underwater.

Pool owners in the state had been given until the 29th October to list their facilities with the government or face fines of up to $220 under measures that are part of a wider a national scheme to boost inspections and prevent accidental drownings.

However as the date of the deadline rolled around, the Division of Local Government issued a circular to all councils from its Minister Don Page “requesting councils to not issue fines to pool owners for failing to register.”

“The Division of Local Government, which administers the pools registry, has informed me that there have been technical problems with the register because of the large number of people attempting to register their pools at the last minute,’’ Mr Page said.

“In the past 24 hours over 2500 people an hour have been successfully registering their pools. By midday today over 200,000 people had successfully registered their pools – which means over 45,000 people have registered their pools in the past 24 hours.”

Councils have been told not to issue fines until 19th of November as the state government attempts to work through the online bottleneck of registrations that cruelled the registry webpage and slowed its loading time as long as 10 minutes.

However Mr Page is adamant that once the backlog is cleared, the government will come after non-compliant pool owners.

“Giving people more time to register does not mean letting them off the hook when it comes to pool safety, Mr Page said.

“Pool owners have a responsibility to make sure that their pool is safe at all times. As we approach the swimming season, this is as important as ever.”