Pool will go with the flow

WHEN swimmers dive into Yamba’s Main Beach ocean pool in summer they should notice a change, courtesy of a $600,000 facelift.

WHEN swimmers dive into Yamba’s Main Beach ocean pool in summer they should notice a change, courtesy of a $600,000 facelift.

Clarence Valley Council has engaged consultants to plan fixing a crack in the pool floor and alter water flow to keep the pool clean, after a change in plan which would have cost around $2 million.

Deputy general manager Rob Donges said the initial idea was to construct a new pool on top of the existing one.

“We had some informal discussions with users of the pool and they weren’t happy with that,” he said.

“And when we got some preliminary costings it was beyond the budget that we have.”

Mr Donges said the designers were working on the two

problems and hopefully they would report back to council in a month.

“Firstly, we need to fix a crack in the pool floor, which makes it leak,” he said.

“Secondly, we need to limit the amount of sand, seawater and seaweed that comes into the pool so that we don’t have to spend so much time and money cleaning it out.”

He said the work would be a bonus for swimmers with the pool not being forced to close due to the water being too dirty and smelly.

“Sometimes when the pool goes off it goes off real bad,” he said.

“It can go off really quickly and become smelly and unusable.”

Mr Donges said he hoped the funding was sufficient to revitalise the pool, which was constructed in the late 1960s.

“The rock pool at Yamba is iconic. It’s part of the whole Yamba experience and we want to make sure it lasts much longer.”

“But now there is a fair bit of concrete cancer in it and a major crack in the floor.

“It has reached the point where we need to spend some big bucks to fix it up.”

One of the options to limit the flow of sand and seaweed in, was to pump sea-water into the pool, which is the reverse of the pool’s current set-up, Mr Donges said.

“The modern design for sea pools is that you pump in and let it flow out,” he said.

“We are waiting for our consultant to come back to us with a design that fits within our budget. Then we will take it to the users.”

Originally published as Pool will go with the flow