Hampstead Ponds victory: We can swim when we like!

In what the great Michael Beloff QC has termed “a victory for common sense and self-reliance”, the High Court has ruled that the City of London Corporation was out of order in its attempts to cut back on pond swimming opening hours because it was not prepared to pay for the large number of lifeguards that the Corporation itself employed to cover its arse out of alleged fear of prosecution under Health and Safety regulations.

This was a test case so although it applied specifically to winter early morning swimming in the Mixed Pond by a registered club, the ruling means that in effect all three Heath swimming ponds could be once again open for swimming during all daylight hours all year without lifeguards present. Excellent news for those of us who like an evening swim in the summer. Even more widely, it reaffirms the idea that responsible adults are free to decide for themselves whether to pursue recreational activities involving an element of risk.

Mr Justice Stanley Burnton said that the City's decision was based on a legal error.

"If an adult swimmer, with knowledge of the risks of swimming, chooses to swim unsupervised, the risks they incur are the result of their decision and not of the permission to swim.”

"It follows that those risks are not the result of the conduct of the employer of his undertaking, and the employer is not liable to be convicted of an offence."

"The swimmers will be under no compulsion or pressure to incur the risks involved in self-regulated swimming. They will do so of their own free will."

The judge spoke out in favour of “individual freedom” and against the imposition of "a grey and dull safety regime.

This may well also mean that the ludicrous Corporation proposals of charging swimmers through a ‘voluntary’ pay and display ticket can now be scrapped.

Let’s hope that the Corporation has learned its lesson and will indeed not appeal.