Child's fall results in window locks move Proposed safety measure: All windows above ground floor will be required by law to fit safety devices to prevent children from falling through. Every apartment above ground level in NSW will be required to fit safety devices to prevent children falling out of windows. Over five years all windows above the ground floor in existing residential strata schemes must be fitted with locks or safety devices which can prevent the windows from opening more than 12.5 centimetres, or the width of a baby's head, Minister for Fair Trading Anthony Roberts said. The proposed safety measure, to be enforced in May, will cost between $10 and $40 per window. The move has been widely applauded by the Australian Medical Association, peak strata corporations and the NSW opposition. "Some owners and tenants will already have safety devices fitted to their windows but this will ensure any child living in or visiting an apartment above the ground floor will be safe," Mr Roberts said on Wednesday. It is estimated that by 2030 more than 50 per cent of the NSW population will live in a strata scheme. Over 2011 and 2012, as many as 39 children aged nine or younger were hospitalised after falling from apartment windows. Last month a toddler fell 15 metres onto a slab of concrete in Eastwood. The two-year-old, Jeremy Tak, was unharmed but for a few scratches after falling through the fly screen from a three-storey apartment building. The proposed law endorses the recommendations of the report Preventing Children Falling from Residential Buildings, by a Children's Hospital at Westmead working party, released last year. One of its lead authors, Cathy Sherry, described it as a "huge step forward." Property owners must install the locks, but Ms Sherry said the law did not limit how far apartment dwellers could open their windows. "The recommendation is [for] a lock or limiting advice," she said, adding there had been "some resistance" to the mandatory locks by some in the strata industry. The NSW opposition said the five-year delay of the new law was a "serious concern." "Five years is far too long for families with young children currently living in apartments to have to wait for safety devices to be installed," opposition spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk said.