Need for Pool now well established (#782)

On 20 April the Shire of Murray opened its new Aquatic Centre at Pinjarra, built at a cost of $7.235M.  Mandurah Aquatic Centre, roughly twenty five kilometres east, boasts two 25m heated pools with a separate toddlers pool, gymnasium etc. while Waroona, a similar distance south of Pinjarra, has a year-round indoor 6-lane heated 25m pool as part of its leisure facilities.  Three facilities within a radius of 25km from Pinjarra?  Not bad coverage for the locals!

At home the results of the Denmark Shire Community Needs & Customer Satisfaction Survey confirmed our community’s need for a pool here in Denmark.  Unlike the 2009 Needs Assessment analysis supervised by a joint Council/DACCI working party, this latest confirmation came in the form of unsolicited pleas and comments from the respondents – there had been no need to ask the community yet again whether or not it wanted a pool, the need had already been established.

Why then does Denmark drag its feet?  Why is Denmark one of only two similar sized Shires in WA that does not have its own year-round facility?  Will we be last to the altar … trailing even the other reluctant bride the Shire of Toodyay which voted last June to make an aquatic facility its first priority for recreational development and has a 2012 commencement in its five year Capital Works Plan?

The short answer is cost!  At least, this has been the response of previous Councils and conscientious senior staff who, aware of the financial implications and unsure of the level of community resolve, have been quite reasonably hesitant.

It is at this point that DACCI, the management committee of the Denmark Aquatic Associations enters the picture.  We are represented on the Council’s Project Team established to examine the feasibility of an indoor heated facility which is both financially and environmentally sustainable.  This feasibility study is nearing a conclusion and DACCI will soon press the Team to urge Council to make an in-principle decision to go ahead.

Our recommendation will be that provided we were to be as fortunate as Pinjarra in securing government and local industry support for the capital build and as long as we are willing to meet the recurrent operating costs, Council’s decision should certainly be to go ahead.

In the coming weeks we will try, in these columns, to give an account of the key aspects of the problem and explain why the time is ripe for a community pool.  Our intention is to cover all the angles so that we are all as well prepared as possible to support council in a positive decision.

Cyril Edwards, Vice President DACCI

The Leisure pool at Pinjarra with the 8-lane lap pool in the background.