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Standards

The history of TGO's approach to outdoor gym safety

Care is our main ingredient

An outdoor gym can be accessed by the whole community, so our approach to design is that we need to make our equipment and spaces as safe and inclusive as possible for as wide an audience as possible. For this reason, we have always led on standards when it comes to safety and inclusivity.

 

What standards do you need for outdoor gyms?

When we pioneered outdoor gyms in the UK, there were no outdoor gym safety standards because we were the first!

Rather than import a range of equipment from overseas without consideration for standards, we set about establishing what standards we should apply to an outdoor gym range to make it safe. We then designed our range to meet these standards. 

We decided to design and test our range to meet key elements of the Inclusive Fitness Initiative (IFI) and the EN1176, the industry standards for play equipment used by toddlers and EN957 the indoor training standard. Our due diligence on safety captured the attention of the British Standards Industry (BSI). The BSI asked TGO to help create a UK outdoor gym specification for all ages and abilities: BSI PAS888 was born. This incorporated all the best practise we had learnt.

At the same time the European safety standard: EN16630 came into play and leap frogged over the PAS. The difference between the PAS and the EN standard was that the European standard only catered for people over the height of 1400mm. This to us did not include the whole community.

TGO comply to EN16630 but our standards go above and beyond that standard aligned with the British PAS888 work, meaning that it is safer for the whole community.

The minimum safety standard is the European standard EN16630 but if children are going to access it - in public parks and open spaces, beachfronts, schools, leisure facilities, holiday destinations etc - we would recommend choosing TGO products which are based also on the EN1176.

Read all about TGO's history here - including how we brought outdoor gyms to the UK, our passion for standards, our great partnerships and our innovative products.

Check out all TGO's current outdoor gym products and packages.