Installed Sites

BANGOR SWIMMING POOL
Bangor

At more than 12 feet deep in places, the Bangor Swimming Pool is one of the deepest and oldest swimming pools in Wales. Based in Gwynedd in the north, the pool is in constant use by local swimming clubs, schools and the city's university as well as the general public for swimming and diving classes.

With so much activity in such a deep pool, it's not surprising that lifeguards often find it difficult to see precisely what is happening at the bottom of the pool. The pool's design also adds to the challenge. Being a typically 1960s-built pool it has very large windows, releasing a great deal of sunlight into the building, which produces glare on the water surface that sometimes restricts the lifeguards' view.

Such problems prompted Gwynedd County Council Leisure Officer Brian Evans to look for additional measures to raise the level of safety for all swimmers, and to install the Poseidon system.

"We realised after seeing Poseidon that CCTV technology is designed to re-visit an incident that you have recorded, not to alert you to an incident," said Brian Evans. The Poseidon system alerts lifeguards that something suspicious is happening in real time, and notifies them of the exact location of the incident. "Lifeguarding is a difficult job, and guards need to keep an eye on what's happening. We saw that Poseidon allows the lifeguards to continue working in the same manner as before. There is no need for them to be watching screens. My lifeguards are at their best when they are watching the water."