Canberra's outdoor pools should be run by ACT govt not 'developers masquerading as pool operators' |
Imagine this: it's 2065 and 800,000 people are living in Canberra.
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Where do they go to cool off? Probably not an outdoor public pool.
If the developers keep getting their way in Canberra, we're going to be left with one outdoor pool left on the southside and one on the northside. And that is a disgrace.
The government's own population projections say by 2065, there will be about 800,000 people living in the ACT - about 430,000 on the northside and about 370,000 on the southside.
The way things are going, the southside will be left with only the 30-metre outdoor Manuka pool, which is beautiful and historic but not enough for 370,000 people.
And on the northside, the only certainty for an outdoor pool option is the Dickson aquatic centre. Is that enough for more than 400,000 people?
We're losing our outdoor pools and the restful, calm, shaded green spaces that go with them.
At this stage, the Phillip outdoor 50-metre pool is still open but on the chopping block, with stage one of the Geocon residential redevelopment on the site now approved.
Geocon will instead put in a 25-metre indoor pool and some even smaller pools for toddlers and warm water, and a splash pad.
The existing pool will remain open to the public until the replacement pool is built.
The 50-metre outdoor pool at the Big Splash water park at Macquarie remains empty and vandalised. The lessee