$1m work may only give Hastings pool reprieve

Hastings District Council will spend $1 million upgrading the Frimley Pool. Photo / File

The rundown Frimley Pool will get a $1 million upgrade after Hastings District councillors rejected a recommendation that it be shut down.

But councillors have warned the repair work may only be an interim reprieve for what is now Hawke's Bay's only remaining 50m pool.

In 2012, the council set aside $1.06 million to upgrade the Frimley Pool as part of a $5.5 million allocation to revamp four of the district's swimming facilities.

But in a report to yesterday's district development committee, Alice Heather, the council's group manager of community facilities and programmes, said the budgeted funds would not be enough to fix a number of health and safety and maintenance issues at the Frimley site.

These included strengthening the site's earthquake-prone building, repairing its leaking roof, fixing broken tiles in its three pools and installing new filtration systems.

Completing all the required work would require an additional $1.74 million so staff recommended decommissioning the complex and turning it into an expansion of adjoining Frimley Park with a new "splash pad" water play area built on the combined site.

Decommissioning the pools and building the splash pad was estimated to cost between $550,000 and $650,000.

Built in 1966, the Frimley Pool became the only facility with a 50m pool in Hawke's Bay after a similar length lap pool at Onekawa Aquatic Centre in Napier was closed several years ago.

Councillors visited the Frimley facility on Friday and yesterday voted to spend the previously-budgeted $1.06 million "upgrading the centre in the most effective way having regard to the safety issues".

Councillor Malcolm Dixon asked how the facility had been allowed to become so rundown.

"I think there are a few people within council who should be embarrassed with the situation they've allowed the aquatic centre to get to over the last 15 years," he said.

Councillor John Roil said: "It's been a real shame that as a council we haven't actually provided the maintenance on a facility that has really been a gem of Hastings in the past."

But Mayor Lawrence Yule said council staff had been saying for several years that Frimley "wasn't worth repairing" so the council had deliberately not invested in the facility as it looked at plans for a new Hastings pool.

However, the closure of the city's Opera House ahead of unexpected earthquake strengthening work meant the council had to look at "reprioritising" spending and the pool strategy was "the first impact, effectively" of that.

"If we do that, and that pushes that pool out for five, six, seven years, then we effectively have an obligation to keep the Frimley pool open in the interim," Mr Yule said.

"People love that facility and people love the charging regime in the summer, which is pretty reasonable.

"But at some point after this temporary measure has been put in place, we're going to have to consider whether we invest further at that site, or we close that site and invest in another."

Ms Heather said while she personally loved swimming in 50m pools, they were expensive to operate and it was not essential that Hawke's Bay retained one in order to meet requirements for swimming competitions.

"It's recognised nationally that the cost of 50m pools is prohibitive, and you can meet your competitive and other requirements through well-designed, deep-water 25m pools."