Making plans and seeking support for our city’s pools

When Thirroul Pool first opened in 1940, baby boomers hadn’t been born, and World War II was dominating news headlines across the globe.

The pool was the second of Council’s owned and managed supervised public swimming pools to open after the Continental welcomed swimmers for the first time in 1928. It was followed by Dapto Swimming Pool and Helensburgh opening in 1965 and 1969 respectively.

The remainder of the city’s nine public swimming pools opened in 1973 (Corrimal Swimming Pool), 1977 (Western Suburbs Pool), 1980 (Berkeley Swimming Pool), 1983 (Beaton Park Pool) and 2000 (Port Kembla Pool).

This means the youngest of the city’s pools is 23 years old, and the oldest is a sprightly 95 years old. Like all well-used facilities, these pools are starting to show their age.

At Monday night’s Council meeting, Councillors resolved to prioritise the consideration of pool resourcing as they consider the 2024/25 budget, call upon the State Government for funding support and work towards a review of the Future of our Pools Strategy.

“We had a bumpy start to this year’s swim season with some ageing infrastructure challenges at a number of our pools including Dapto and Corrimal,’’ Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said.

“Looking at the age of our pools, we can expect these challenges will continue to crop up as we move forward so it’s essential we get plans and a budget in place to ensure these facilities able to be maintained effectively, and are available to our community into the future.’’

Cr Bradbery said a key consideration as Council looks to review the Future of our Pools Strategy is what community want and expect from their public pools.

“We know our community loves our city’s public pools with a lifeguard service, just as they value the city’s nine rockpools that are not monitored by professional lifeguards,’’ he said.

“When our city’s baby boomers were young, the expectation of pools was there would be a square box that was deeper at one end and was 50metres in length and there were lanes to swim in and, possibly, a toddler’s pool at the same facility. Now community expectations have changed – or have they?

“We’re more sun aware than we were, splash pads are desirable for the city’s youngest swimmers, and we want to make sure our pools are accessible so everyone can enjoy a dip on a hot summer’s day. These are all things that will be considered in the revision of the Strategy.’’

By revising the strategy, and having a budget in place for the maintenance and potential improvements to pools in the future will allow Council to seek grant funding to contribute towards the cost of better facilities.

“Council is responsible for $5.5 billion worth of assets and we invest $170 million each year into the maintenance, renewal and upgrade of the city’s infrastructure,’’ Cr Bradbery said.

“These funds are spread across all we do and we always welcome any additional support that’s provided by the State Government. Grant funding allows us to bring forward key projects for our community.

“To do this, we need to have a clear plan that we can share that doesn’t just have aspirational goals but a clear road map of what we plan to do and how we will go about it.’’