48% rise in pool fees may sink club: president

FACING a 48% increase in pool fees, Queenstown Swimming Club believes it will struggle to keep its head above water.

In the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s draft annual plan, pool lane hire for club members rises from a ‘‘charitable’’ rate of $6.75 per lane per hour to $10 an hour.

As a result, club hire fees would rise from about $28,000 a year to $42,000, which had to be paid by swimmers — and their families — according to how much they used the pool.

On top of that, junior members already paid $179 a year to access the Queenstown Events Centre’s

Alpine Aqualand pool.

The club’s immediate past president, David Marriott, said council fees alone, with the proposed increase, would total more than $1000 a year, on average, on top of coaching fees, meaning the average club membership was $2500plus a year — ‘‘a sum well beyond the resources of most families’’.

‘‘If you’ve got two kids, you probably can’t afford to have them both swimming unless you’re reasonably wealthy.’’

With the club’s existing fees, the 50orsomember club — which trained competitive swimmers — already struggled to attract members graduating from the council’s much cheaper learntoswim programme, he said.

In fact, he believed they were already overcharged by the council, and was going to propose it abolish lane fees.

‘‘We accept that’s probably a pipe dream at the moment, but we were trying to point out how different it was here to anywhere else.

‘‘In Dunedin, for example, the clubs pay a lane charge at Moana Pool but it’s peppercorn stuff, and that’s because the Dunedin City Council see themselves as wanting to support those clubs.’’

In Auckland, he pointed out children 16 and under, including those in swim clubs, had free access to council pools ‘‘as a means of actively supporting and encouraging water safety’’.

‘‘We’re surrounded by water — we should be pushing water safety.

‘‘Queenstown Lakes District Council should be viewing the swimming club as a partner, not as a customer they can make money from’’.

You had the situation where an adult, having just paid an entrance fee for the Alpine Aqualand pool, was swimming for a far cheaper rate than the youngster in the lane next to them, ‘‘which is just nonsense’’.

If the council’s increased charge went through, he feared swimming would be far less attractive to children compared with other sports, where they paid little or nothing to use council fields.

‘‘Why is swimming being penalised?’’