A FATHER is calling for safety improvements to be made to Salisbury's swimming pool, after his young daughter was injured.

Six-year-old Leah Emerick slipped in the children's spa and caught her head on a tiled corner, cutting the top of her ear and requiring hospital treatment.

Leah has now recovered but still has a small scar on her ear.

The incident happened nearly six months ago and since then her father, Darren, has been trying to get Salisbury district council - which owns the pool - to alter the design of the area where the accident happened.

Mr Emerick, who lives in Woodfalls, said that, in the children's spa, there is a narrow channel with gushing water and the corners are at head height with right-angled tiled corners.

He told the Journal: "I think the corners should be rounded, so that, if a child slips, they don't hit their head on a right-angled corner piece. Leah could easily have hit her eye on the corner, instead of her ear, and it could have been worse."

Mr Emerick said he reported the accident the same day and wrote to the manager of the pool's operators, Leisure Connections.

He said he also took up the matter with the district council and, after discussions with various officials, agreed to send his views in writing.

Mr Emerick said: "I told the council I wanted the incident investigated by the Health and Safety Executive but the council told me the executive was happy for the district council to investigate the matter. I assumed I would hear something from the council but I've heard nothing."

The Journal contacted the council and, this week, a spokesman said: "Mr Emerick contacted us in November last year, to say his daughter had had an accident at the pool.

"Although we own the pool, it is sub-contracted to a private operator, but we are still the responsible agency for health and safety enforcement at the pool."

The council said it had investigated the pool but had found "no obvious hazards" and the council had not found any other similar case, either in Salisbury or anywhere else in the country.

However, the council said it was taking over the operation of the pool on April 1 and, from that date, the responsibility of health and safety enforcement would be with the Health and Safety Executive.

The spokesman said: "We shall be discussing our findings on this incident with them. We always take reports of accidents very seriously and investigate them thoroughly."

Mr Emerick said: "We seem to be going in circles. I doubt whether the matter will go any further forward, but at least I have drawn other parents' attention to what I consider is a design fault."