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Response to Shoalhaven City Council Media Release 19 November 2009 Save Nowra Community Pool welcomes the belated advice from the Mayor that there will be community consultation about the future of Nowra Pool. We had previously been concerned by the minutes of the Council meeting on 21 September 2009 (para g) which referred only to the: “plan for the closure of Nowra Pool” It has never been made clear by the Council why the closure of the pool would be necessary to allow the commencement of the Northern Leisure Centre at Bomaderry. The Mayor’s media release quoting usage figures for Nowra Pool for the first 2 weeks of the season was inappropriate, particularly after the Council had: a. confused the date for the commencement of the season; and b. deliberately omitted Nowra Pool from its marketing campaign; Further, the data quoted did not take into account the approximately 150 members of the Nowra Swim Club that attend each Friday evening. We are pleased to note that the Mayor himself attended the pool on Sunday (22 Nov) to enjoy the community atmosphere. We assume that he will provide another media release to advise that there was an average of approx. 185 people at Nowra pool on each of last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Save Nowra Community Pool is most concerned however that there has been a deliberate campaign by Shoalhaven City Council employees and some Councillors over the past 6 years to minimise the usage of the pool for the specific purpose of justifying its closure. These methods have included: i. Discouraging swim squads from Nowra, including the luring of swimming coaches from Nowra to Bomaderry with subsidised lane hire. As a result there has not been a swim squad at Nowra Pool for several years. This, together with the fact that Bomaderry swim squad members are offered free attendance at Bomaderry pool at times outside of their lessons, means that both the children and their parents will only ever attend Bomaderry Pool. This in turn depletes the retail sales at the Nowra Pool kiosk; ii. A deliberate campaign to vary and confuse the commencement time of the opening of the Nowra Pool season over the last 6 years. As a result, season ticket holders have declined to renew their passes and have instead joined Bomaderry Pool; iii. The deliberate decision not to undertake any real marketing of the Nowra Pool or its associated waterslide. Just one example is the omission of the Nowra Community Pool from recent radio advertisements promoting all other leisure centres in the Shoalhaven; iv. Denying some local schools access to Nowra Pool for their carnivals; directing them instead to the Bomaderry Pool; v. Failure by the Council to make season passes transferable between Bomaderry and Nowra. Both pools are Council run and there appears to be no good reason to deny a Bomaderry pass holder access to Nowra other than to keep the number of Nowra attendees to a minimum; vi. The decision to spend almost no money on maintaining Nowra Pool’s facilities, resulting in the pool appearing tired and uninviting. The Save Nowra Community Pool committee strongly urges the Council to totally rebuild the Nowra Pool and fit it with heat pumps for all year round usage. We note Council’s own reports suggests that this could be achieved for about $2 million. We do not hold a firm view on whether the Northern Leisure Centre at Bomaderry should proceed. We do observe however that this is a matter for the community as a whole and there has been almost no consultation on this issue either. We are confident that properly consulted, the Nowra community would prefer to spend $2 million rebuilding the Nowra Pool prior to committing over $30 million to a 10 year project to build the Northern Leisure Centre, particularly if the closure of Nowra Pool is part of the price that must be paid for the larger facility. If the Council cannot afford $2 million to rebuild Nowra Pool, then surely a commitment to spend more than $30 million on the Northern Leisure Centre is folly. John McGuire – Save Nowra Community Pool 23 November 2009
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