Swimmers fighting the tide to keep their pools afloat across Victoria

2 months ago 14

When the Belfast Aquatics pool opened in Port Fairy in 2007, there was a buoyant feeling the community had achieved the impossible.

People in the small town on Victoria’s west coast desperately wanted their own swimming pool and gym even though councils were building larger aquatic centres in central locations.

Matilda Mathews will be unable to use the Port Fairy pool as the council has decided to close it.

So they did it themselves. Volunteers spent countless hours planning, designing and fundraising. Local builders worked on the construction. Businesses and community groups pitched in with funding, in addition to some council and state government money.

Teresa O’Brien, who lives nearby, recalls with fondness the excitement that swept across the crowd that gathered when the doors first opened. There was an abiding sense the community had done something for the greater good.

“It was such an incredible feeling,” O’Brien said.

But the pool and its gym now stand closed and the joyful community feeling has dissipated. Last month, Moyne Shire Council announced the lease at the site had expired, and that it had no plans to continue operating the facility.

Belfast Aquatics has been closed since Moyne Shire Council decided last month not to renew the lease for the operators.

Port Fairy is among many communities across regional Victoria and suburban Melbourne where their pools have shut or face closure.

Moyne Shire estimates the Belfast Aquatics pool needs $2 million in repairs, but that figure is disputed by the community. A petition to save the pool has gathered more than 1600 signatures. The pool and gym were operated by a volunteer committee, which employed staff and lifeguards.

O’Brien, who was a committee member of Belfast Aquatics, agreed the pool needed extensive work but said the council’s $2 million figure came as a shock.

She said the pool had 5000 individual visits every month, including school children learning to swim, people doing rehabilitation after injury or surgery, and netballers and footballers for recovery and training. The pool also a ramp into the water, providing access for people with disabilities.

Fitzroy Pool on a hot December afternoon last year.

“It’s a very egalitarian place. Everybody’s equal in the pool,” O’Brien said.

The pool was partially funded by a $1 levy on caravan park users. While the community operated and built the pool, Moyne Shire owns the land.

O’Brien said the Belfast Aquatics committee had hoped to extend its 20-year lease after it expired this year, but the council refused.

“It’s been a complete devastation for the community,” she said.

An agenda item to be considered by Moyne Shire at its next council meeting says building inspections identified significant mould, plus structural and plant concerns. The agenda says the council has provided more than $3 million to run the pool since it opened, including $290,000 in the 2024-25 financial year.

However, the council declined to make public the report on the pool facility’s condition, citing commercial-in-confidence matters, the impact on staff and potential legal consequences.

Moyne Shire Mayor Jordan Lockett said the council had exercised its statutory obligations in closing the pool following the discovery of mould. He insisted the council was examining possibilities for the pool’s future and would not make any decisions until it exhausted considering all options.

Dr Liz Taylor, a senior lecturer in urban planning and design at Monash University, said rural pools had been closing or facing closure for decades. Unheated outdoor pools are particularly vulnerable.

However, Taylor said the Belfast Aquatics pool was unique among community-run pools because it was heated and indoors.

She said there had once been about 100 outdoor pools run by communities in regional and rural Victoria, but that number had declined to about 30.

In East Gippsland, a council has closed the Bairnsdale Outdoor Pool and a safety assessment will be undertaken. A pool at Campbells Creek, near Bendigo, closed about 15 years ago and communities across Victoria are fighting to save or reopen their pools.

In 1994, the Fitzroy community waged a fierce battle to protect its pool from closure. But Taylor said maintenance costs were typically steep for swimming pools and councils were reluctant to carry that burden.

Councils building pools are now putting their resources into large aquatic centres in central locations, which typically include gyms and cafes rather than standalone swimming pools in smaller towns.

Belfast Aquatic users Sonia Sanders (left) and Mary Scott.

“If you’re a small town the numbers don’t add up,” Taylor said. “With this pool closed [in Port Fairy], I doubt they’ll get another one.”

Insurance costs, too, also high. The Port Fairy pool has also been the site of tragedy, as a grade two student died there in 2021. The pool operators were convicted and fined $80,000 and the Education Department was fined $100,000. O’Brien said significant safety improvements had since been made at the pool.

Port Fairy resident Sonia Sandars, who has multiple sclerosis, said the pool had given her freedom.
“It’s the only place I can independently stand up, with the aid of ankle weights and a noodle,” she said. “It frees all my joints up.”

Sandars, who used the pool weekly, said she was far less likely to go to another pool because of the additional distance. The pool in Warrnambool is a 26-minute drive from Port Fairy.

Fellow user Mary Scott said the Port Fairy pool had been an important social outlet, in addition to providing myriad health benefits.

“The whole town is in mourning,” she said.

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