Where Every Fact on ukwaterpark.org/ Comes From
Explicit, named sources at every editorial layer — venue website, leisure-trust operator estate page, parent group estate page, local authority leisure portfolio, HSE / PWTAG / RLSS UK / CIMSPA / Swim England / STA / BSI standards framework, Euan’s Guide and AccessAble for accessibility, and Companies House / Charity Commission for legal status. Read this alongside our Editorial Policy.
The Six-Tier Source Hierarchy
Higher-tier sources govern when sources conflict. We list every body we draw from explicitly so a reader can verify the same source themselves.
1Primary — the venue’s own published website
The single most authoritative source for any specific venue. We click through the homepage, opening-hours page, prices page, slide-line-up page, accessibility statement, and any current refurbishment or incident notice. The venue’s own published page is the working “ground truth” for opening hours, prices, current slide availability and any operational change.
2Operator estate pages and parent group estate pages
For operator attribution, we check:
- Everyone Active — the operating company SLM Limited; estate listing across 200+ UK leisure facilities
- GLL (Greenwich Leisure Limited) — charitable social enterprise; “Better” brand; estate listing across UK leisure facilities
- Places Leisure — the leisure-trust arm of Places for People; estate listing across UK leisure facilities
- SLM Active — estate listing
- Parkwood Leisure — estate listing across UK leisure facilities
- Serco Leisure — estate listing
- 1Life — estate listing
- Halo Leisure — estate listing across the Midlands and southwest
For parent-group attribution (hotel water complexes and commercial parks):
- Merlin Entertainments — commercial attractions including theme-park water rides
- Bourne Leisure — parent of Haven and Butlin's holiday-park brands
- Haven (Bourne Leisure) — holiday-park water attractions
- Butlin's (Bourne Leisure) — “Splash Waterworld” facilities
- Center Parcs UK — “Subtropical Swimming Paradise” facilities at Sherwood Forest, Longleat Forest, Elveden Forest, Whinfell Forest and Woburn Forest
- Parkdean Resorts — holiday-park water complexes across the UK
3Local authority leisure portfolios and licensing
- The council’s published leisure-services portfolio page
- The council’s procurement and tender records (for confirming current leisure-trust operating contracts and tender outcomes)
- The council’s Environmental Health department, which is the enforcing authority for health-and-safety at many premises
- The council’s licensing register (Licensing Act 2003) for any premises licences (alcohol, regulated entertainment) at the venue
4UK statutory and industry framework
- Health and Safety Executive (HSE) — hse.gov.uk — Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974; HSE guidance HSG179 “Managing health and safety in swimming pools” and HSG282 “Managing risk in play and leisure”
- Pool Water Treatment Advisory Group (PWTAG) — pwtag.org — “Code of Practice for the operation of swimming pools” and technical notes on disinfection, microbiology and water quality
- Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK) — rlss.org.uk — National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ) standards
- Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMSPA) — cimspa.co.uk — sport and leisure management professional standards
- Swim England — swimming.org — the recognised national governing body for swimming in England
- Swimming Teachers’ Association (STA) — sta.co.uk — swimming teacher and lifeguard qualifications
- British Standards Institution (BSI) — BS EN 1069 for water slides (parts 1 and 2); BS EN 13451 for swimming-pool equipment
5Accessibility and visitor-experience references
- The venue’s accessibility statement as required by the Equality Act 2010 Part 3
- Euan’s Guide — euansguide.com — user-contributed disabled-access reviews of UK venues
- AccessAble (formerly DisabledGo) — accessable.co.uk — surveyed access information for UK venues
- Where relevant, the Changing Places consortium’s published register of Changing Places toilet provision at venues
6Companies House, Charity Commission and equivalents
- Companies House — find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk — for verifying the legal status of operating companies (leisure trusts often registered as companies limited by guarantee)
- Charity Commission for England and Wales — charity register — for verifying the charitable status of leisure trusts that operate as registered charities
- OSCR (Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator) — oscr.org.uk — the equivalent for Scotland
- Charity Commission for Northern Ireland — charitycommissionni.org.uk — the equivalent for Northern Ireland
The Eight-Step Verification Workflow
- Identify the right tier-1 source. The venue’s own website — not a third-party aggregator.
- Verify URLs live. A human editor clicks every link before publication and after every operator change.
- Cross-check the postal address against Royal Mail PAF data and the venue’s published contact page.
- Verify operator attribution. Against the leisure-trust operator’s published estate list and (for council leisure contracts) the council’s procurement page.
- Verify parent-group attribution. Against the parent group’s UK estate page (Center Parcs UK, Bourne Leisure, Merlin Entertainments, etc.) and, where the venue is a separate legal entity, against Companies House filings.
- Verify accessibility. Against the venue’s accessibility statement, Euan’s Guide and AccessAble.
- Dial-test the customer phone on a quarterly cycle — without generating any false emergency call.
- Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews end-to-end against this workflow.
What We Deliberately Do Not Use
- Ticket-resale aggregators — pricing on these sites does not reflect venue-direct pricing and is not authoritative
- Fake “HSE-branded” sites — only hse.gov.uk is the authoritative HSE source
- Unauthorised package-holiday sellers — only Package Travel Regulations 2018-compliant tour operators are an authoritative source for hotel-water-park package bookings
- Auto-scraped data feeds — these go stale within weeks and routinely misattribute leisure-trust operators after council retenders
- Unaccredited “review” sites — we use Euan’s Guide and AccessAble for accessibility because they are credentialed and surveyed
AI Policy
We use software tools for spell-check, grammar review and routine drafting assistance. We do not use AI to publish editorial facts (URLs, telephone numbers, opening hours, operator attributions, prices, accessibility provisions) without independent human verification against the venue’s own page or the operator’s published estate list. The eight-step workflow above governs every venue entry on the site.
UK GDPR Reminder — What This Site Cannot Provide
We do not publish lists of named visitors, attendance records, photographs of identifiable individuals, employment information about leisure-trust staff (other than named senior managers in their professional capacity), or any other personal data about identifiable individuals. UK GDPR principles — lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality, accountability — govern how we approach any personal data in our editorial content.
Want to Suggest a Source?
Email info@ukwaterpark.org with the subject “Source suggestion”. We review every suggestion against the six-tier hierarchy.
📧 info@ukwaterpark.org