Councillor comments

Martinborough Swimming Pool: There’s an old adage, use it or lose it.

Council officers with the assistance of consultants Opus have reported to Council on the condition of the district’s 3 Swimming Pools. I don’t believe there are too many surprises. What the report does identify is the lack of maintenance and improvements and possible health risks due to not having good procedures to ensure that treatment of water is compliant to NZ Standards.

The Martinborough facility was extensively refurbish in the mid-nineties the report identifies $25,000 expenditure is required prior opening this summer. The Community Board will fund the bulk of this from Pain Farm Funds.

There are some almost exciting things happening with the pool, well I think they’re exciting. Firstly our new Amenities and 3 Waters contactor, City Care has subcontracted the pool operations to CLM who is a professional leisure management company operating numerous swimming pools. Secondly about half of the 24K is being spent on new pool covers.

Covers are essential to retain water temperature; they provide insulation and prevent evaporation. Temperature losses; 70% via evaporation, 20% via radiation. Yes, Solar Heating was installed in the nineties and it works, there was a cover that wasn’t used and it is well past it used by date and is stuffed. The new contractors will use the new cover! The pool cover not only retains heat when the pool is not being used (60-70% of the time) also reduces the amount of treatment and pool cleaning. I would have thought a no brainer. The 10 year maintenance and capital expenditure is approximately $240,000 for the Martinborough pool, if some funding from Pain Farm was made available the cost would be very affordable.

The report also discusses closure and rationalisation, I believe with good management and regular maintenance the pool will be good for many more years. However the pool does need to have some community ownership and increased usage. The school is by far the biggest user at present and it is disappointing that Martinborough community is unable to organise a swimming club or even a learn to swim group that could utilise the pool more.
Both Featherston and Greytown have reasonably well attended Swimming Clubs which provide a great service to the kids and helps ensure that there is a focus on pool condition and upkeep. There are funds available from the previous club that went into recess. Surely there are people interested, I would be happy to assist in getting a meeting together, please give me a ring 3069095.

This is an underutilised asset without use it may be lost!
Many thanks Max Stevens