Fundraising set to start for indoor pool

June 9th, 2015
[by David Armstrong]

A sub-committee of Good Sports Motueka is set to begin public fundraising to create an indoor heated swimming pool facility around the present high school pool.

Barry Dowler, Fred Hickling and Daryl Maclean were all members of the original pool committee whose work was dashed when TDC withdrew funding support some eight years ago after a ratepayers referendum, and then dropped it altogether from the Long Term Plan in 2011.

They have since reworked their building plan using the existing pool rather than a far more expensive new pool elsewhere, and the committee is setting up a fundraising sub-committee. Vision Motueka has helped rewrite the funding proposal.

Barry, Fred and Daryl have received costed engineering designs that show enclosing the school pool and upgrading the changing room facilities can be done for under $1 million, as against what could have been $5 million or more for a totally new aquatic facility.

Key to the new design going ahead is that the money will be raised by the community rather than relying on Tasman District Council approval, given that TDC funds are not even in the 10-year plan.

Rather than arguing about it for 10 years and getting nowhere, they believe it is better to get on with a community effort, much as Motueka people did to get the Friendship Hospital going.

The school pool has been renovated to fix long-running water leakage problems, and a Memorandum of Understanding has been drawn up between the school and Good Sports Motueka about shared usage.

The first phase of the project will enclose the pool, meaning its usage will be extended from the present two-month window to months in late Spring and early Autumn.

It will also provide separate changing facilities for the school and the public, as the changing sheds are used for other school sports as well.

In the second phase, solar photovoltaic laminates will be built into the roof to allow heating inside and therefore extend the season of use further.

Then as further funds are raised a small therapeutic pool will be built within the complex, after which the main pool will be heated for year-round use.

"Although this is not the ideal $5 million situation, hopefully the townspeople will get behind it and make it happen," says Barry Dowler.

"A lot of people were against this facility being built new as it was (proposed as) a Council project, which would have affected rates. This project ... will be paid for by fundraising from within and around the community and funding organisations - no rates involvement."

Some years ago the issue of how it would be paid for was put to a controversially worded ratepayer vote and narrowly defeated. Many residents at the time were bitterly disappointed, complaining that the residents who paid rates only through landlords, but who would receive great benefits from the pool, were unable to vote.

The fundraising committee also dissolved, after much of the funds raised had been spent on original engineering design work, site evaluations, proposals and reports.

Desire for an indoor pool facility has remained strong in Motueka. In the Motueka 2030 survey of community wishes run by Vision Motueka last month, such a project was one of the three top-voted requests (see our story here).

The high school pool was originally built by the community, not the Education Department, and then gifted to the school on the understanding that it would be available for use by the public. It sits on land leased by Wakatu Inc.

Following are three drawings of the proposed pool, the first two viewed from Rugby Park (looking south) and third of the building's interior.

Comment by Carolyn Fraser:
[Posted 13 June 2015]

I'm all for the pool changes. I think it is a must for Motueka. I take my daughter to Richmond 3 times a week to swim, I would love to see this happen. I am very happy to help fundraiser for the upgrade of the pool.

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