The Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA) is the licensing authority for outdoor activity centres for young people in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

. Since 2007 it has been part of the

Health and Safety Executive The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is a UK government agency responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in Great Britain. It is a non-depar ...

(HSE), the government body charged with overseeing health and safety in all workplaces. AALA inspect and issue licences to providers. These licences give an assurance that, so far as is reasonably practicable, participants and employees can be 'safe'.

Creation

The AALA was created following the

Lyme Bay canoeing tragedy The Lyme Bay kayaking disaster was a 1993 incident that led to the death of four teenagers on a sea kayaking trip in the Lyme Bay area on the south coast of England. The incident led to legislation to regulate adventure activities centres worki ...

in March, 1993 which involved a commercial organisation assuming responsibility for children's safety. A group of eight pupils and their teacher were accompanied by two instructors from an outdoor centre on the south coast of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. As a result of a series of errors, four of the teenagers drowned. The subsequent trial resulted in the prosecution of the parent company and the centre manager. The government initially resisted changing legislation until David Jamieson, the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Devonport, who represented the parents of the children who died, introduced a Private Member's Bill which in January 1995 became the Activity Centres (Young Persons’ Safety) Act 1995. In January 1995 an independent licensing authority, the AALA, was created to bring the act into reality.

Scope

The activities within the scope of the licensing scheme are: *

caving Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology i ...

(except in caves principally used as show-places open to the public) *

climbing Climbing is the activity of using one's hands, feet, or any other part of the body to ascend a steep topographical object that can range from the world's tallest mountains (e.g. the eight thousanders), to small boulders. Climbing is done fo ...

(climbing, traversing, abseiling and scrambling activities except on purpose-built

climbing wall A climbing wall is an artificially constructed wall with grips for hands and feet, usually used for indoor climbing, but sometimes located outdoors. Some are brick or wooden constructions, but on most modern walls, the material most often used i ...

s or abseiling towers) *

trekking Backpacking is the outdoor recreation of carrying gear on one's back, while hiking for more than a day. It is often an extended journey, and may involve camping outdoors. In North America tenting is common, where simple shelters and mountain h ...

(walking, running, pony trekking, mountain biking, off-piste skiing and related activities when done in moor- or mountain-country above 600 metres and which is remote, i.e. over 30 minutes travelling time from the nearest road or refuge) * watersports (

canoeing Canoeing is an activity which involves paddling a canoe with a single-bladed paddle. Common meanings of the term are limited to when the canoeing is the central purpose of the activity. Broader meanings include when it is combined with other acti ...

rafting Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cour ...

and related activities when done on the sea, tidal waters or larger non-placid inland waters).

Future

On 15 October 2012, Lord Young of Graffham, recommended that the AALA be abolished and the existing statutory licensing regime be replaced by a code of practice. The January 2016 update from the AALA reported that "... responsibility for the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA) is likely to move from the

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(DWP) to

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(DCMS) ..."

References

{{authority control Public bodies and task forces of the United Kingdom government Safety organizations