Hotel questions outdoor dining bollards

The Kangaroo Island Council says it has had to act on an audit that found some local cafes and restaurants do not meet safety standards for outdoor dining areas.

The council has asked for traffic bollards to be installed in eating areas next to roads or car parks but it would cost some businesses more than $20,000.

The manager of the Aurora Ozone Hotel at Kingscote, Andrew Duncan, says he is happy to install an additional four bollards but not to replace 14 already there, as required by the council.

"We've got perfectly good bollards out there and there's no national standard they're compared against, so we're saying, look, leave us alone," he said.

"We wouldn't ever do anything that we thought was of any danger to the public but we just feel that what we have is perfectly adequate.

"They've been in place for a long time. Any imaginable crash out there that certainly would be foreseeable, the bollards that we have would contain that."

The council's CEO, Andrew Boardman, says it would rather enforce compliance than have to deal with an incident.

"Once we know there is a risk, if we don't act upon that, then the liability starts," he said.

"If we ignore the survey and say well it hasn't happened yet so it's not going to, and there was an incident, then quite clearly the blame will be found and will lie at council's door.

"So now we have something telling us we're not compliant, we need to get people compliant."

Mr Boardman says it can bulk-order bollards to help reduce costs.

Source: ABC News, 18 September 2012