Yes. The City of Greater Geelong publishes a list of local pool safety inspectors at geelongcity.vic.gov.au/poolinspections. Fifteen names were on it when we checked on 9 October 2026, Local Pool Inspections among them. The council doesn’t inspect pools and doesn’t endorse anyone on the list, and it recommends getting several quotes before you book.
Want the fastest route to a Form 23 in Greater Geelong? Book a pool inspection in Geelong with Local Pool Inspections, IN-PS 100055, for $250 flat.
Does Greater Geelong keep its own pool inspector register?
It keeps something, though the council calls it a list, not a register. You’ll find it at geelongcity.vic.gov.au/poolinspections, under one line of introduction: “The list below are local Geelong registered pool safety inspectors.” Fifteen inspectors were on it when we checked on 9 October 2026. We’re one of them.
Think phone directory. Business names run in alphabetical order, most of them linked to a website, and there isn’t a registration number among them. There’s no booking system and no star ratings either. Above the names, the council says it doesn’t provide inspection services, and that owners must have a private inspector check the barrier every four years. For a sense of scale, the council’s swimming pools and spas page counted 8,904 registered pools and spas in the municipality as at 25 August 2026. The same page tells you to get a few quotes before booking, because, as the council puts it, inspection costs aren’t regulated and can vary. Where the list fits into the rest of the council’s requirements is something we cover in our Greater Geelong pool compliance guide.
Is a council list the same as being a registered inspector?
No. Getting onto Greater Geelong’s list takes an email. An inspector writes to the council’s building team at building@geelongcity.vic.gov.au and asks to be added, and the page doesn’t say what, if anything, the council checks before a name goes up. Registration in Victoria is a separate matter entirely. A registered pool inspector holds a current IN-PS number with the Building and Plumbing Commission (BPC, formerly the VBA). That number is the legal standing behind a Form 23, and the council listing carries none. What the certificate itself records is covered in our Victorian Form 23 certificate guide.
Checking one takes a minute or so on the state’s public practitioner search, and we’ve set out how to check any inspector’s IN-PS registration step by step elsewhere. It works on any inspector in Victoria, listed by Greater Geelong or not. The list gives you names close to home. The BPC register tells you whether a name is worth ringing.
How should I read Greater Geelong’s inspector list?
Nobody has narrowed it down for you, and it’s easy to read more into it than is there.
- The order is alphabetical and nothing more. Names aren’t ranked by rating, by price, or by how long anyone has held their registration.
- A listing is not a current licence. Check the IN-PS number yourself, every time, including for us.
- The council says inspection costs aren’t regulated and tells you to ring around. When you do, ask what each quote covers, because that varies more than the headline figure does.
- The page moves. Inspectors are added when they email the council, and the version we read on 9 October 2026 carried a “last updated” date of 23 September 2026.
What does Local Pool Inspections’ entry on the list actually tell you?
Not much. Our name on that page means we asked the council to put it there. It says nothing about whether our registration is current today, what we charge, or how we work. Look up IN-PS 100055 yourself on the BPC’s Practitioner Search instead of taking the listing, or us, at face value. It takes a name, a business name or a registration number. The address still begins bams.vba.vic.gov.au, a leftover from before the BPC took over.
Our own details, then, since the listing carries none of them. $250 covers the inspection, the Form 23 where the barrier passes, and one free re-inspection where it doesn’t. A typical residential pool takes about 30 minutes on site. If the barrier passes, we issue your Form 23 there and then, and you lodge it with Greater Geelong yourself within 30 days of issue. We can’t lodge it for you. You do that online through the council’s Lodge pool or spa compliance certificate page, with the certificate, the pool registration number from the council’s letters, and a credit card for the $23.80 lodgement fee (as at October 2026, check Greater Geelong’s current schedule). A 0.25 per cent card processing fee applies on top.
If repairs or a booking delay will push you past your due date, Greater Geelong takes written extension-of-time applications on a form from that same page and says it replies within five working days. Under the regulations, a council can extend the deadline by up to six months at a time. The council records the lodgement against your pool on its Pool and Spa Register, which we cover in our guide to the council’s Form 23 lodgement process. That’s a third document to keep straight, and the easiest one to confuse with the others: it records pools, not the people who inspect them.
What should I check on the day, beyond the council list and the licence number?
Have your registration letter out before the inspection starts, whoever you booked. Greater Geelong sends it once a pool is on its register, and the council’s pool registration page says the letter explains three things: the pool’s date of construction, which standards apply to its safety barrier, and when your compliance certificate is due for lodgement. The middle one is the measure the whole inspection runs on. The council sets it from the construction date it determines for your pool and records it on the register, and the register is what we inspect against. Greater Geelong’s inspection page is blunt about it: “You will need to show your registration letter to the pool safety inspector at the time of the inspection.” Without it we are working from your recollection of a date. And if the construction date on the letter looks wrong, take that up with the council rather than the inspector. The regulations require its registration notice to tell you how to appeal that date to the Building Appeals Board, within 30 days of receiving it.
It’s easy to reach for the wrong envelope here. A compliance notice is not a registration letter, and we’ve set out what each one means in our guide to the council’s pool barrier letter.
Greater Geelong asks owners to produce the registration letter. An inspector who wants to see it, and gives you their IN-PS number the first time you ask, is doing the job properly.
Pool safety services we provide
Common questions about Greater Geelong’s inspector list
Does being on Greater Geelong’s inspector list mean an inspector is currently registered?
No. Inspectors join the list by emailing the council’s building team, and the council’s page doesn’t say what is checked before a name goes up. The list shows no registration numbers either. Confirm current registration separately by searching the inspector’s name or IN-PS number on the BPC’s public Practitioner Search.
Where is Greater Geelong’s inspector list published?
On the council’s own website, at geelongcity.vic.gov.au/poolinspections, on the page titled Arrange a pool or spa barrier inspection. The council introduces them as local Geelong pool safety inspectors and lists them in alphabetical order. It’s a plain list of business names, not a booking page, and it carried fifteen names on 9 October 2026.
Does the council recommend a specific inspector from its list?
No. Greater Geelong’s page states plainly that the council doesn’t provide inspections itself and doesn’t endorse any inspector on the list. It asks you to compare quotes from more than one inspector, since inspection costs aren’t regulated and can vary. When you compare them, ask whether each quote covers a re-inspection.
What’s the difference between Greater Geelong’s pool register and its inspector list?
They’re two separate documents. The Pool and Spa Register records registered pools and their Form 23 history, and it concerns owners. The inspector list on the same council website records practitioners who asked to be added. Neither one replaces the state’s IN-PS registration check, which you do yourself on the BPC’s Practitioner Search.
What should I ask to see before an inspector starts work?
Their IN-PS number, which you can verify yourself on the BPC register. Have your own council registration letter ready too: it carries the barrier standard your property is assessed against, which the council register decides. Greater Geelong’s inspection page says you’ll need to show that letter to the inspector at the time of the inspection.
Two more posts on nearby questions: Pool Safety Certificate Geelong and Who Can Inspect a Pool Barrier in Victoria?.
Some owners also ask about which registered practitioners can certify a barrier; that has its own page.