National Kidsafe Day has come with a timely reminder to Victorian Border residents to get their pools and spas registered.
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In December, new laws to improve swimming pool and spa safety came into effect in Victoria, which require owners to register their pools with their council by November 1, 2020.
Poolside Albury-Wodonga owner Michelle Lappin has been reminding Victorian customers of the requirement.
"For us, we have so many different councils in Victoria and in NSW, there's different legislation," she said.
"NSW has had the regulation in force for three or four years now, where pools must be registered.
"It's a new thing in Victoria, that homeowners have to register and apply for a compliance certificate to make sure their fencing is up to regulation.
"We have some support people that we can refer customers on so they are speaking to someone qualified.
"There's some checklists you can print off and go around your pool and do your own self-assessment prior to getting someone in."
Since 2000, 27 young children have fatally drowned in Victorian private swimming pools and spas.
In at least 20 of those cases, the non-compliance of the safety barrier was a contributing factor, according to the Victorian government.
"It's not just the fencing around the pool, it's having your CPR chart, and we also sell alarms so that if children fall in the pool, it then goes off," Ms Lappin said.
The Wodonga Poolside store has moved from Melbourne Road to the Melrose Drive intersection, in Roadshow Drive.
"We've just relocated our Wodonga store five weeks ago," Ms Lappin said.
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"We're picking up a lot of new people, we've been in Wodonga for 11 years."
Kidsafe Victoria's message on National Kidsafe Day was that "it only takes a split second"; with an average of three children dying weekly from preventable injuries.
"With more children at home and parents juggling working from home commitments with remote learning, sadly we have seen a spike in child deaths from unintentional injuries," chief executive Melanie Courtney said.
