Whanganui council signs off 40-person panel to make outdoor swimming recommendation

Council officers recommended shutting the facility last year. Photo / Mark Brimblecombe

A 40-person panel will have a say on the future of Whanganui East Pool and get paid for its efforts.

Whanganui District Council agreed to form a citizens assembly at a meeting on Thursday, with a price tag of $30,000.

Last year, council officers recommended closing the nearly 100-year-old pool due to its age and ongoing costs, but that was overruled by elected members, who voted in favour of keeping it open for at least one more season.

A $40,000 options report to provide a long-term plan for outdoor swimming in Whanganui was also commissioned.

Council chief executive David Langford said that work was about to finish.

Normally, the next steps involved officers deciding on a preferred option and putting it forward for consultation as part of the council’s annual plan, Langford said.

“Those processes don’t always go particularly well,” he said.

“The previous consultation on this subject was quite divisive for the community.”

The public was given two options during last year’s long-term plan: close the pool or invest $2.1 million in a full upgrade.

There were 1466 responses, with 509 wanting it closed, 703 in favour of upgrading it and 127 wanting another option.

Langford said the council would call for volunteers and form a panel to debate and make a final recommendation on the future of the pool and outdoor swimming in the district.

Council officers would be available to provide information and answer questions, with payments to participants totalling $20,000 (40 members receiving $500 each).

Kate Joblin says the citizen assembly is "about letting the silent majority have a say". Photo / NZME

“A lot of the case studies and people we’ve spoken to during our research have indicated that if you want them [assemblies] to be effective, one of the barriers you need to remove is socioeconomic,” Langford said.

“You want a good cross-section of the whole community so you don’t get the usual squeaky wheels dominating.

“They are already engaged in local government and they’ll probably be the first to put their hands up and say ‘Yes, we’d like to be involved'.”

Councillor Kate Joblin said forming the assembly was exciting.

“This is about democracy, this is about letting the silent majority have a say.

“I look forward to the wisdom of that 40 people and I’m sure they’ll deliver us very well-thought-through recommendations.”

Visitor numbers at the pool plummeted in the 2024-25 season compared with 2023-24, with the facility now shut to the public.

This season ran from December 18 to February 5 and the pool was open from Tuesday to Saturday.

In total, there were 2521 admissions.

There were 10,368 admissions in 2023-24, but the season ran four weeks longer and the facility was open every day.

Langford said once a group of people had been gathered, a lottery would be run to select them at random to form the panel.

The assembly’s recommendation, either by consensus or majority view, would be fed into deliberations for the annual plan, replacing public consultation on the issue.

However, the community could still submit on the pool and outdoor swimming “whether we put it in the consultation document or not”, he said.

“I think this will be quite an interesting experiment to see what our community actually wants.

Mayor Andrew Tripe said outdoor swimming and Whanganui East Pool had “been on the radar for a long time”.

“Let’s take it back to the community. Let’s try something different,” he said.

“I’m hoping it works well and is something we are able to use more, particularly for these big topics.”

An alternative motion from councillor Phillipa Baker-Hogan to have a panel of five elected members and five community members was voted down.

The council has included $2 million for the 2025-26 financial year to implement the eventual decision on outdoor swimming.

Registration for the citizens assembly opens on Friday, Feb 21 via the council’s website and Facebook page.

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.