$400,000 loss for five pools

The five seasonal summer swimming pools in Baw Baw Shire ran at a loss of more than $400,000 last summer.

The five pools are at Drouin, Trafalgar, Neerim South, Thorpdale and Rawson, the latter also a free unsupervised gymnasium for people aged 18 years and older.

Other than Rawson that has a heated indoor pool over the summer the pools are outdoor pools.

A report presented to last week’s Baw Baw council meeting by its community assets directorate identified areas of possible savings amounting to about $68,000 per year.

However, it pointed out that any adjustments to the current contract with YMCA to manage the pools that does not expire until June 2020 would require further consultation.

YMCA also manages Warragul Leisure Centre on behalf of the council, including the swimming pools component, but financial details of its operation were not included in the report.

But it did state that since the leisure centre was redeveloped and included a new outdoor pool, swimming attendances jumped from almost 94,000 in 2016-17 to more than 143,00 last financial year.

By contrast total individual attendances at the five seasonal pools of 14,400 was the lowest for 10 years with school bookings accounting for 35 per cent of the total.

Attendances at the Drouin pool were 4443, Trafalgar 3138, Neerim South 2931, Rawson 2812 and Thorpdale 1059 for the season that ran from December 1 to March 31 with the four outdoor pools only open on days when temperatures reach at least 25 degrees.

The council subsidised each attendance at Thorpdale to the tune of $59.82.

For Rawson it was $38.11, Trafalgar $25.61, Neerim South $24.92 and Drouin $18.81.

Options put forward to reduce council’s operating costs were to discontinue early morning swimming where attendances at each of Drouin and Trafalgar pools were less than 60 for the season, ending the season earlier (the Labour Day weekend rather than the end of March) and not opening the four outdoor pools on days when the temperature was below 28 degrees rather than the current 25 degrees.

Council resolved to have another seasonal review undertaken to enable future consideration of possible operational efficiencies.