Editorial Policy — UKWaterPark.org — Six-Tier Sources, Eight-Step Verification

1. Editorial Mission

UK water parks and leisure facilities are operationally varied. There are roughly 100 dedicated commercial water parks, hotel water complexes, lidos and council leisure centres with significant water-play across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each has its own operator, parent group, opening hours, prices, slide line-up, and accessibility provisions. We exist to give UK residents and visitors plain-English, structurally complete access to each venue’s administrative, contact and facility information — without auto-scraped staleness, without misleading branding, and without confusion between our editorial directory and the venue’s own booking platform.

2. Source Hierarchy

We work to a six-tier source hierarchy, where higher-tier sources govern when sources conflict:

• Tier 1 — Primary authority: The venue’s own published website, including the homepage, opening-hours page, prices page, accessibility statement and any current incident or refurbishment notice.
• Tier 2 — Operator and parent group: The leisure-trust operator’s estate page (Everyone Active, GLL, Places Leisure, SLM Active, Parkwood Leisure, Serco Leisure, etc.) and the parent group’s UK estate page (Merlin Entertainments, Bourne Leisure, Haven, Butlin's, Center Parcs UK, Parkdean Resorts) for ownership and operating contract status.
• Tier 3 — Local authority leisure portfolio: The council’s published leisure-services page, leisure-contract tender records, and (for council-owned premises) any inspection records that are routinely published.
• Tier 4 — UK statutory and industry framework: HSE guidance (HSG179, HSG282), HSE incident statistics, PWTAG Code of Practice and technical notes, RLSS UK lifeguarding standards, CIMSPA management standards, BSI standards (BS EN 1069 for slides, BS EN 13451 for pool equipment).
• Tier 5 — Accessibility and visitor-experience references: Euan’s Guide, AccessAble (formerly DisabledGo), and the venue’s own accessibility statement under the Equality Act 2010 Part 3.
• Tier 6 — Companies House and Charity Commission: For verifying the legal status of operators, leisure trusts (registered charities or community benefit societies), and parent groups where relevant.

Full detail on each tier is on our Sources & Methodology page.

3. Verification Workflow

1. Identify the right authoritative source. Venue website, operator estate page, parent group estate page, local authority leisure portfolio.
2. Verify URLs are live. A human editor clicks every link before publication.
3. Cross-check the postal address against Royal Mail PAF data and the venue’s contact page.
4. Verify operator attribution. Against the operator’s published estate list and (for council leisure contracts) the council’s procurement page.
5. Verify parent group attribution. Against Companies House filings where the venue is a separate legal entity.
6. Cross-check accessibility against the venue’s published statement and Euan’s Guide / AccessAble.
7. Dial-test the customer phone on a quarterly cycle. We confirm the line answers and routes correctly — without generating any false emergency call.
8. Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews end-to-end, including the “this is not the venue” notice, the emergency framework (999/112/111/116 123) and the CRA 2015 consumer-rights position.

4. Operator-Change Discipline — A UK-Specific Challenge

5. Independence

ukwaterpark.org/ is independent. We are not affiliated with the HSE, PWTAG, RLSS UK, CIMSPA, Swim England, the STA, the ASA, the CMA, the ICO, any local authority, any leisure-trust operator, any parent group, or any individual venue. No regulator, operator or venue reviews our content prior to publication. No payment is accepted for editorial coverage of any specific venue.

6. Advertising Relationships

We are funded by display advertising. Our editorial content is never altered to favour any advertiser. We decline advertising in these categories:

• Ticket-resale operations that misrepresent themselves as primary venue ticket sellers
• Operations that misrepresent themselves as the HSE, a local authority, or a specific venue
• Unauthorised “package holiday” sellers operating outside the Package Travel Regulations 2018
• Gambling, payday lending, “swim coaching diet” products, or other categories incompatible with our family-leisure context
• Anything that breaches the CAP Code (UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing) or BCAP Code (broadcast equivalent)
• Products misrepresenting medical or weight-loss claims relating to swimming or water-based exercise

7. ASA / CAP Code Compliance

Our own promotional content (where we have it) is written to comply with the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (the CAP Code), administered by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Where we host third-party advertising, we expect those advertisers to comply with the CAP Code — if you spot an ad on our site that you believe breaches the CAP Code, please report it both to us and to the ASA at asa.org.uk.

8. Corrections

If a directory entry is wrong — operator change after a council retender, parent-group ownership change, opening-hours change, prices update, slide refurbishment, accessibility provision change — we want to know and we want to fix it. Reader-reported corrections are our priority queue. We process corrections within 7 working days, with a 48-hour priority path for broken venue URLs, out-of-date phone numbers, and confirmed operator changes following council leisure-contract retenders. We add a small editorial note when a substantive correction is made.

9. Authors and Reviewers

Site content is written and reviewed by editors who have spent time researching and writing about UK leisure-services regulation, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act framework, leisure-trust operating models, and accessibility provisions under the Equality Act 2010. Specialist subject-matter reviewers — including former leisure-centre duty managers, RLSS UK National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ) holders, and accessibility consultants — are consulted on substantive editorial questions.

10. AI and Automation

We use software tools for spell-check, grammar review, and routine drafting assistance. However, no editorial fact, URL, telephone number, operator attribution, parent-group attribution, postal address, opening hours, prices, or accessibility detail on ukwaterpark.org/ is published from AI without human verification against the venue's own published page or the operator's published estate list. Every venue entry passes through human editorial review. We do not auto-generate or auto-publish venue entries.

11. Contact

For corrections, editorial questions, or sourcing inquiries: info@ukwaterpark.org