IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v33y2013i1p15-23.html

The Rise and Fall of a Regulator: Adventure Sports in the United Kingdom

Author

Listed:
  • Laurence Ball‐King
  • John Watt
  • David J. Ball

Abstract

Following a tragic accident in 1993 involving the deaths of teenagers while kayaking a new regulatory regime was imposed upon some adventure sports providers in the United Kingdom. In particular, a new regulatory body, the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA), was established to oversee the sector. Yet in 2010, a government‐sponsored review recommended that AALA be abolished and this recommendation has been quickly accepted by government. This article explores the background to these developments through documentation, interviews with those affected by the AALA regime, and court cases. Evidence reported here, perhaps surprising, is that AALA itself is seen in a very positive light by many, even those it regulates. What may have happened is that AALA became caught up in a wider debate about the place and management of risk in life beyond the workplace, which has been simmering in the United Kingdom for a decade or more, and of which it fell foul. It may also be that adventure sports, because they entail voluntary engagement with high consequence hazards, starkly expose serious questions about the application of conventional, factory‐originated risk assessment approaches to life in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence Ball‐King & John Watt & David J. Ball, 2013. "The Rise and Fall of a Regulator: Adventure Sports in the United Kingdom," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 15-23, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:33:y:2013:i:1:p:15-23
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01850.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01850.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01850.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Louis Anthony (Tony)Cox, 2008. "What's Wrong with Risk Matrices?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 497-512, April.
    2. Gary E. Machlis & Eugene A. Rosa, 1990. "Desired Risk: Broadening the Social Amplification of Risk Framework," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(1), pages 161-168, March.
    3. Hood, Christopher & Rothstein, Henry & Baldwin, Robert, 2004. "The Government of Risk: Understanding Risk Regulation Regimes," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270019.
    4. Louis Anthony (Tony) Cox & Djangir Babayev & William Huber, 2005. "Some Limitations of Qualitative Risk Rating Systems," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(3), pages 651-662, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Williams & Louise Odin, 2016. "Board Diving Regulations in Public Swimming Pools and Risk of Injury," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(6), pages 1251-1261, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gulsum Kubra Kaya & James Ward & John Clarkson, 2019. "A Review of Risk Matrices Used in Acute Hospitals in England," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(5), pages 1060-1070, May.
    2. Julien Etienne, 2015. "Different ways of blowing the whistle: Explaining variations in decentralized enforcement in the UK and France," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(4), pages 309-324, December.
    3. Jeroen van der Heijden & Jitske de Jong, 2009. "Towards a Better Understanding of Building Regulation," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 36(6), pages 1038-1052, December.
    4. Anaïs Valiquette L’Heureux, 2022. "The Case Study of Los Angeles City & County Fraud, Embezzlement and Corruption Safeguards during times of pandemic," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 593-610, September.
    5. Mathias Ericson, 2018. "“Sweden Has Been Naïve”: Nationalism, Protectionism and Securitisation in Response to the Refugee Crisis of 2015," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(4), pages 95-102.
    6. David J. Ball & Laurence Ball‐King, 2013. "Safety Management and Public Spaces: Restoring Balance," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(5), pages 763-771, May.
    7. Hua Li & George E. Apostolakis & Joseph Gifun & William VanSchalkwyk & Susan Leite & David Barber, 2009. "Ranking the Risks from Multiple Hazards in a Small Community," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 438-456, March.
    8. Yue Guo & Tianhao Zhai & Hao Huang & Luozhong Wang, 2025. "Problem exposure and problem solving: The impact of regulatory regimes on citizens' trust in regulated sectors," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(1), pages 21-38, January.
    9. Rudolf URBAN, & Roman URBAN, & Lukáš ŠTĚPà NEK, 2016. "A New Approach To Risk Assessment Based On The Semantic Value Of Expressions," EcoForum, "Stefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Romania, Faculty of Economics and Public Administration - Economy, Business Administration and Tourism Department., vol. 5(1), pages 1-30, January.
    10. Louis Anthony (Tony) Cox, Jr., 2012. "Evaluating and Improving Risk Formulas for Allocating Limited Budgets to Expensive Risk‐Reduction Opportunities," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(7), pages 1244-1252, July.
    11. Luca Allodi & Fabio Massacci, 2017. "Security Events and Vulnerability Data for Cybersecurity Risk Estimation," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(8), pages 1606-1627, August.
    12. Peter Taylor-Gooby, 2008. "Sociological approaches to risk: strong in analysis but weak in policy influence in recent UK developments," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(7), pages 863-876, October.
    13. Christopher D. Wirz & Michael A. Xenos & Dominique Brossard & Dietram Scheufele & Jennifer H. Chung & Luisa Massarani, 2018. "Rethinking Social Amplification of Risk: Social Media and Zika in Three Languages," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(12), pages 2599-2624, December.
    14. Branden B. Johnson & Adam M. Finkel, 2016. "Public Perceptions of Regulatory Costs, Their Uncertainty and Interindividual Distribution," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(6), pages 1148-1170, June.
    15. E. S. Levine & Julie F. Waters, 2013. "Managing Risk at the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(7), pages 1281-1292, July.
    16. Laura N. Rickard, 2014. "Perception of Risk and the Attribution of Responsibility for Accidents," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(3), pages 514-528, March.
    17. Jamie K. Wardman, 2008. "The Constitution of Risk Communication in Advanced Liberal Societies," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(6), pages 1619-1637, December.
    18. Louis Anthony (Tony) Cox Jr & Douglas A. Popken, 2010. "Assessing Potential Human Health Hazards and Benefits from Subtherapeutic Antibiotics in the United States: Tetracyclines as a Case Study," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 432-457, March.
    19. David Demeritt & Henry Rothstein & Anne-Laure Beaussier & Michael Howard, 2015. "Mobilizing Risk: Explaining Policy Transfer in Food and Occupational Safety Regulation in the UK," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(2), pages 373-391, February.
    20. Sander C. S. Clahsen & Irene van Kamp & Betty C. Hakkert & Theo G. Vermeire & Aldert H. Piersma & Erik Lebret, 2019. "Why Do Countries Regulate Environmental Health Risks Differently? A Theoretical Perspective," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(2), pages 439-461, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:33:y:2013:i:1:p:15-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.