Adelaide’s first sea pool, proposed for Hallett Cove, would cost between $3m and $5m, report says
A tidal swimming pool on the coastline at Hallett Cove would cost between $3 million and $5 million, an engineer examining the proposal says.
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A tidal swimming pool at Hallett Cove — Adelaide’s first — would cost up to $5 million, the leader of a team investigating the proposal says.
However, the cost is a “little rubbery”, the engineer examining the proposal says, because there have been relatively few sea pools built in Australia in recent years.
While NSW is home to about 70 sea pools, the “last serious build” occurred at Cronulla in 1990 — and that was a rebuild, according to James Carley principal engineer of the University of NSW Water Research Laboratory.
“So there’s not a lot to go on in terms of cost – it’s a little rubbery,” he said.
Mr Carley presented his team’s preliminary report on the project to Marion Council’s Infrastructure and Strategy Committee this week.
The report was commissioned by the council and the State Government.
His report focused on an area bounded by Hallett Cove Conversation Park, Grand Central Avenue, Heron Way reserve and the sea, and pinpointed the southern section as probably the best location.
The report identified three main types of sea pool, including the best option for Hallett Cove – a walled pool with pumped water and occasional “wave flushing”.
If built, it would be Adelaide’s first.
It said the pool could not be easily designed to “significantly increase sand on the beach”, one of the council and government’s key questions owing to the area’s sand retention issues.
However, it could be designed to provide about 100m of protection to the Heron Way embankment for about 50 years.
“The remaining 300m of embankment would still require protection of some form in the near future,” the report said.
Operation and maintenance costs were not included in the preliminary report but it said councils usually assumed responsibility for those.
The council is awaiting separate information on the pool’s ecological impact, including any potential threats to the hooded plover and Hallett Cove reef, and the implications of the development for local Kaurna people.
Mr Carley said sea pools were “extraordinarily popular” in NSW because “they’re a reasonably safe salt water swimming environment”.
“So you have the same sensation of going to the beach and swimming, and it’s more natural than swimming in chlorinated water,” he said.
“There’s no risk from rips or sharks, and only occasional risk from storms, but you feel like you’re in the ocean – in nature.”
A final report on the project will be tabled by June.
More than 4700 people have signed an online petition in support of the venture.
South Australia has only one sea pool, at Edithburgh, on Yorke Peninsula. It was built in the 1930s.
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