TAKING A DIVE?
Pools v bikes for council cash
Wellington’s water babies could lose out as figures show a massive increase in ratepayer spending for the city’s pools – all while the number of swimmers stays virtually stagnant.
Wellington City Council chief executive Kevin Lavery is now questioning whether some of the money would be better spent on growth sports such as mountain-biking and trail-running.
Since 2002, more than $45 million in ratepayers’ money had been spent on upgrading and renewing the council’s pools, he said in his pre-election report.
Despite Wellington’s population increasing by 15 per cent during that time, visits to the city’s public pools had remained almost static at about 1.2 million visits per year.
‘‘This has meant our ratepayer subsidy per attendee has almost doubled.’’
The problem had been compounded by the council also investing in school pools, meaning fewer school students were now using council pools.
‘‘This competition increases the operational deficit on our own pools and increases the burden on ratepayers.’’
The council needed to be ‘‘smarter’’ with its sports and recreation investment, he said. It may need to look at reducing funding to pools and instead pour that money into ‘‘growth sports’’, such as mountain-biking and trailrunning, which traditionally were not strongly supported by councils.
‘‘The recreation paradigms are shifting and we need to move with them,’’ he said.
‘‘Issues like this place significant budget pressure on the council and these pressures need to be met in order for us to balance the books.’’
Wellington Mountain Bike Club secretary Russel Garlick said more funding to help mountain-biking would come with big benefits.
Compared to the level of staffing for the capital’s pools, the council employed just two people to maintain and clear mountain-bike tracks, he said.
‘‘Even one more person to keep tracks free [from foliage] would be amazing.’’
While much of the work on tracks was done by volunteers, council backing would allow larger projects to go ahead, such as one for walkers and bikers that linked Makara, north of Karori, to Owhiro Bay on Wellington’s south coast.
Paul Hewitson, of the Wellington Harrier Athletic Club, said the capital’s cross-country and trail-running tracks were already under-utilised and there were plenty of them.
If there was more money coming to the sport it would be good to see it helping existing athletics clubs, some of which were struggling with membership as trail runners tended to be more ‘‘avant-garde’’ and some had the perception that clubs were ‘‘elitist and too competitive’’.
Council chief operating officer Greg Orchard said the $45m spent on upgrading and renewing pools did not include operating costs, which had also risen. For example, more facilities meant more electricity costs and greater depreciation.
While adult swimming had dropped, child learn-to-swim programmes participants were rising.
Other growth sports included ocean swimming, BMX riding, and walking – none of which required traditional council facilities.
However, there were no plans to close any council pools, he said.
Mountain-biker Sam Kain had noticed a large growth in the number of mountain bikers in the four years since he took up the sport. The council did a good job of maintaining tracks ‘‘but sometimes they are not in the best conditions’’ so more money for more work would benefit the sport, he said.
A local ride heading down from the Brooklyn wind turbine, called the ‘‘Car Parts’’ track, had gotten its name for the old car parts that scattered the area.
A Water Safety New Zealand spokeswoman said pools provided an important community service by teaching ‘‘important’’ survival skills. ‘‘We wouldn’t want to see a reduction in funding’’.