BS EN 1176 states that every new playground should be subjected to a Post Installation Inspection by an independent inspector to ensure that the playground has been built and installed correctly and that it meets with the requirements of the standards.

Whether you are a local authority, parish council, school, housing developer, leisure operator or community group, you need to ensure that this inspection is carried out. The post installation playground inspection and risk assessment will form a vital part of your overall site risk assessment that is legally required.

The simplest way to achieve this is to specify that the assessment is carried out by an independently registered RPII Annual Inspector on the purchase order or in the tender documents for the playground.

Alternatively, you can specify a Post Installation playground inspection from the Play Inspection Company and be safe in the knowledge that only suitably qualified inspectors will be used by our company.

It is a requirement of BS EN 1176 Part 7 that an Annual Inspection is carried out.

This inspection should be carried out by an independent specialist not connected with the playground operator or owner. Essentially we are looking at vandalism, wear and tear, long term structural problems, standards compliance and design, along with risk assessment etc. This report covers the overall safety of the playground.

BS EN 1176 Part 7 recommends that operational inspections are carried out on a monthly or quarterly basis, depending on risk assessment.

This inspection looks in detail at the condition of the equipment; providing a quality control check on the more regular inspections and identifying wear and tear on the equipment.

Such inspections should be carried out by an appropriately trained member of staff (minimum RPII Operational Inspector), or alternatively by a suitably qualified specialist and should be recorded. The Play Inspection Company can carry out these playground inspections for you, or alternatively provide RPII in-house training courses for your own inspectors.

For larger multiple site contracts, The Play Inspection Company are unique in providing numerous additional summary reports free of charge.

These reports are provided in excel worksheets and can be filtered to enable fast and easy identification of where the most significant problems are.

Risk assessment is an important part of playground safety management if used correctly. We are looking to highlight the hazards that users cannot expect to see and therefore require remedial action; rather than remove the challenge provided by the design of the equipment.

We calculate our Risk Assessment on a 5 x 5 matrix scale, assessing the likelihood of an injury occurring against the severity of the potential injury. Risk Assessing in this manner helps to achieve a sensible overall rating, and gives a clear indication where remedial action is required.

We believe it is pretty much impossible to inspect a playground without carrying out some degree of Risk Assessment; It is therefore included free of charge with all of our inspections.

At times it can be beneficial to extend the area of playgound reporting to assess for example: Play Value, DDA Accessibility, Equipment Life Expectancy etc. Any of these services can be quoted as an individual report, or as part of an overall assessment.

Sample reports are available by request

Our playground inspectors are always happy to offer their support and advice and we aim to provide a competitively priced service with inspections tailored to your individual requirements; to discuss any element of school playground safety, or equipment and site assessments, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help in any way we can.