A regional lifeguard has called on the public community to step up and take responsibility for ensuring more public pools are built in Hawke's Bay.
Over more than five decades of life guarding, Westshore Surf Life Saving Club director of life guarding Brian Quirk has seen an increasing number of people that don't know how to swim and blames the region's small amount of public pools for the problem.
"You've only got to look back 30 years ago and virtually most of the schools in Napier had a pool of some sort and kids were expected to learn to swim," he said.
"You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise we're going to end up with a catastrophe."
While acknowledging that school pool costs may be "exorbitant" Mr Quirk said this issue could easily be cured by having a community facility where schools are granted cheap access.