Pool Barrier Compliance & Form 23
Brimbank City Council

Start at Brimbank's registration application page, which is where to check the current form, fee and steps. For a new pool or spa the deadline is 30 days from the Certificate of Final Inspection or the Occupancy Permit, whichever your build finished with. The rule covers anything that can hold more than 300mm of water, above-ground and inflatable pools included, under Part 9A of the Building Regulations 2018.

A newly built pool gets its first barrier sign-off from the building surveyor on the permit. I'm not the person for that step. Where I come in is the barrier inspection each time a four-yearly certificate is due. The statewide registration rules have their own page.

Every four years, counted from the lodgement of your last certificate. When council receives a Form 23 it has to write back, under regulation 147V, confirming the date it was lodged and the date the next one is due. That notice is your deadline. The pool's age has nothing to do with it.

Where you are in Brimbank tends to decide which round you're on. A pool in a newer Taylors Lakes or Sydenham estate may be coming up to its first four-yearly certificate, while an older pool in Sunshine or St Albans was brought into the system when the statewide rules arrived and is now on repeats. The pool compliance checklist works for either.

Every suburb is held to one standard. What varies is the hardware. Sunshine, Sunshine West, St Albans and Deer Park are established areas, and an older pool there has usually had its gate, hinges and latch in service a long time. Those are the parts that wear. In the newer estates of Taylors Lakes, Sydenham, Delahey and Cairnlea the pools are younger, and the gate may never have been adjusted after the builder handed over.

Keilor needs a different check altogether. It's split between Brimbank, Moonee Valley and Hume, so check which council your address falls under before you register or lodge anything.