Despite Hume City councillors voting to keep the heated outdoor pool at the Sunbury Aquatic and Leisure Centre open this winter, the 59-year-old pool will be closed until August for maintenance.
In March last year Brian Millett – founder and coach of the Sunbury Triathlon Club – launched a campaign to keep the council-run 50m pool in Ligar St open year-round.
The majority of Hume City’s councillors agreed with Mr Millett and his supporters and voted in favour of the idea. However, celebrations were short-lived as council announced the pool would remain closed in winter 2024.
However, sweetening the disappointment was a council promise it would be open throughout winter 2025 as part of a trial. That promise has been broken.
At the Monday 14 April council meeting, a public question about the Olympic-sized pool’s closure on Tuesday 22 April, revealed “essential maintenance work” has put the pool off-limits to swimmers.
The council’s acting director of city services and living said staff were repairing chips and cracks in the pool’s shell, carrying out re-caulking works, and replacing missing tiles.
“Concrete repairs are also being performed to the external outdoor pool concourse,” he said.
See our report: Campaign to keep pool open gets thumbs up.
In June 2023 councillors voted [PDF] to develop a plan for the Sunbury Aquatic and Leisure Centre.
Pool’s history
Excavating work for the outdoor pool started in 1965 thanks in part to community fundraising £10,000 (correct: pounds) toward the £30,000 cost of construction (about $1m today*).
Fundraising activity for the pool can be traced back to the late 1950s when Sunbury was part of the Shire of Bulla. The pool opened to swimmers on 21 January 1966, and was officially opened on 6 March 1966 by shire president W A Harris.
*The figure was arrived at by using the inflation calculator at the reserve bank (pounds>inflation>today’s dollars).
