South Taranaki pools open for summer

Manaia pool in summer last year. Photo / Supplied

The free pools in South Taranaki will be open from January, thanks to the region being in the orange light Covid-19 protection setting.

South Taranaki District Council's recreation and facilities manager, Phil Waite, said the district's six free community pools in Manaia, Kaponga, Eltham, Rāwhitiroa, Pātea and Waverley will open to the public from Saturday, January 8.

"We normally open these pools in mid-December, but with the uncertainty surrounding the new traffic light system, we didn't think we'd be able to open the pools at all this summer," he said.

He said the council received guidance from the government for the "all clear" to open the pools.

"Now that we know we can open, we need four weeks to fill the pools, get the circulation and filtration systems operating and employ enough staff to lifeguard the pools."

Waite said council will consider keeping the pools open a bit longer to account for the delayed start, but that would depend on whether enough lifeguards could be found as many tended to be students who returned to university in February.

From Friday, December 3, the Hāwera Aquatic Centre (which has been operating only lane swimming), will again be able to cater for recreational swimming.

Under the traffic light system, all council public facilities will remain open to all visitors with the usual physical distancing, capacity limits, mask wearing and contact tracing procedures in place.