Nuriootpa Pool closure could open up various different aquatic opportunities in Barossa Valley, says Mayor
The Barossa Council has announced it will close the Nuriootpa Pool in 2021. Mayor Bim Lange has discussed what could potentially replace it moving forward.
Barossa, Clare & Gawler
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The Barossa Council made the decision to close the Nuriootpa Pool earlier this week due to its condition, but hasn’t ruled out the potential of a new aquatic park in the region.
Barossa Mayor Bim Lange said other opportunities for aquatic recreation are being explored to accompany the Williamstown Pool and the Rex Centre.
“What we’ve now decided to do, with the closure of the Nuriootpa Pool, we can park that and move onto the other opportunities, which could be a splash park, it could be a host of other things,” he said.
“Some of the discussions we’ve had are around Tolley Reserve, which is better located, a regional facility that may service the wider community and tourism, something like our adventure park in Angaston, looking into the future rather than trying to patch up what has really served us well, but is not sustainable.
Local residents vented their frustration on the council’s Facebook page following the announcement, but Mr Lange said the decision needed to happen.
“The decision was made after a long period of time knowing that the pool itself, the asset, has got a huge amount of remedial work that is required to bring it up to a service level,” he said.
“That remedial work is in the area of $1.7 million.
“That doesn’t really fix all the problems, the shell has structural issues, the pipework has other issues and to rebuild a new pool in the same location is $10 million.
“The location is prone to flooding, when we have a high river, it goes underwater.
“That facility has really served us well, we appreciate the sentiment around the pool, but in essence, it’s got to the point where council has put a closure on the pool, but as opened the door to other opportunities to see what other aquatic facilities would best suit that area.”
Mr Lange said the community will be consulted as to what aquatic centre they’d like to see in the future.
“If the community comes back and says that’s the type of structure we want, and we can afford it, and bare in mind we have a heavy commitment to The Big Project, we’ve got demand on the sporting bodies and the region, we’ve got young ladies who are changing in their cars, we have $500 million worth of community assets we need to maintain on about a $35 million budget,” he said.
“At the end of the day, we all have wishlists, but unfortunately council has to sit there and see what’s best for the whole community, not just isolated pockets, at the end of the day, the whole community will pay for it.
“People don’t want their rates to go up, we’ve then go to start to think of what’s the best return from the investment with the limited amount of funds we have available,”
“I appreciate there’ll be some people upset, but let’s not look back at the past, let’s take the blinkers off and stop looking in the rear vision mirror, and look forward at the exciting opportunities we can now look at in aquatics in that area, but it may take a whole different form,”
“They’re the discussions we want to head into.”