Swimming hole be filled in after children's deaths

A west Auckland swimming hole is to be filled in following the deaths of three children.

Waitakere City Council announced today that work to fill Huruhuru Creek swimming hole in Massey would start on February 1 and was expected to take two months.

The children died in accidents between between 1993 and 2001.

The council resolved in 2001 that the Huruhuru Creek hole either needed to be made safe or filled in, and it has taken up the second option.

"The very last thing we wanted to do was fill in that hole," said councillor Linda Cooper, one of the council's child advocates.

"However, it is a black spot and both morally and legally we have to do something effective to prevent any more deaths."

Ms Cooper said the council could not stop children who were supervised inadequately getting in the deep swimming hole, and the council could therefore not say with great confidence that people would not drown there.

"Legally, we have a duty to protect people from known dangers," she said.

"As human beings, also, we would rather suffer the outcry we know is going to happen, than have another child lost in that pool and know we could have prevented it."

The council plans to fill the pool in and create a series of rapids.

"The aim is to make the rapids look as natural as possible and while we won't be encouraging children to play in them, we know that they will and we think that they might have a lot of safe fun doing so," Ms Cooper said.

The last death at the swimming hole was in April 2001, when the body of four-year-old Christian Alfred-Crawford was found in the pool.

- NZPA