Stunning facility officially opened

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

The impressive Kiwa Pools facility was officially opened yesterday with pre-dawn karakia and later in the morning a ceremony including mana whenua, dignitaries and many of the people involved in the project, as well as about 200 children from several local primary schools taking part enthusiastically in the powhiri.

After a ribbon cutting, the large crowd entered from nippy outdoors into a wonderfully warm and welcoming facility that took people's breath away — from the leisure pool visible on entry that screams fun times for children, through to the centrepiece for swimmers and water sports, the 50m x 20m multi-use pool with a moveable floor.

Pool builder Apollo Projects Ltd was congratulated during speeches, and in turn director Paul Lloyd said how special this project has been for him as he learned so much working with Sir Derek Lardelli and Ngāi Tāwhiri during co-design of the facility.

In total Kiwa Pools cost $46m — $40m of that government funding. It was built within budget and only five months behind schedule, despite the challenges of Covid restrictions and multiple severe weather events.

Council chief executive Nedine Thatcher Swann said there was one addition local funders might want to enable — an indoor hydroslide into the leisure pool. It is designed and the facility built with it in mind; the cost would be about $3 million.

In the meantime visitors will still have the outdoors hydroslide to enjoy as one of the existing facilities being retained as part of Kiwa Pools, and open in summer — the others are the 33m outdoor pool, outside toddler's pool and dive pool.

The Olympic Pool Complex has served our region well for the past 50 years, but has aged a lot over the past 15 years since the council began planning its replacement.

Kiwa Pools will be a mainstay for leisure, swimming and more for our community for the rest of this century.

It opens to the public next Saturday, September 2.

Soon afterwards the old 50m covered pool and administration building will be demolished and that area grassed over — potentially to be redeveloped in future to support more recreational activities.

Graham Mitchell, chief executive of government agency Crown Infrastructure Partners, spoke of their enthusiasm for this project — acknowledging that there had been underinvestment in our region.

He also gave apologies for Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who he said would love to have been able to attend the opening but were otherwise engaged with Parliament still sitting, among other things keeping them busy like the election campaign.