Calls for Northern Beaches Council to help with upgrades to Manly Life Saving Club
A PUBLIC design competition is being considered for a new-and-improved Manly Life Saving Club headquarters, which is in urgent need of an upgrade and is ‘bursting at the seams’.
Manly
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MANLY Life Saving Club is “bursting at the seams” and in urgent need of an upgrade, according to president Chris Bell, who has urged Northern Beaches Council to help build a new, modern headquarters.
The club is being backed by Deputy Mayor Candy Bingham who is leading a charge to get approximately $7m needed for a complete overhaul.
At the most recent council meeting, Cr Bingham got unanimous support from her fellow councillors to have planning staff report on the condition and adequacy of the building.
The report — due back in four months — will delve into possible options for upgrades, including possible funding availability.
A public design competition is also to be considered as part of the review.
“Although a full report on the present condition and adequacy of the building needs to be done, there seems to be general agreement that a complete rebuild would be required to meet foreseeable needs of the club and the community,” Cr Bingham said.
“When the existing club was built in 1981, there were only 70 female patrolling members, there are now 760.
“The surf club really is in appalling state it doesn’t remotely meet current requirements.”
Club president Chris Bell and former president Tony Bonner took the Manly Daily on a tour of the facility, showing the dilapidated condition of the premises.
Mr Bonner said: “I would hope that we can establish a club where we have the room and facilities that will take us, as the premier club on the northern beaches where we attract 2.5 million tourists a year, to a point where we can be of service to that broad canvass.
“We are a club that educates and mentors boys and girls from the age of five, when they join our community as nippers right through to their senior ranks.
“So the club is not just a sport club as such it is a community club that has its doors open to people that choose to join us and be a volunteer, to work the 30 hours a season to be of service to the community.”
The club often has to leave its equipment on the path in front of the building due to a lack of storage space.
And its boats have started attracting parking fines from council rangers because they are left on the backstreets of Manly. The club’s toilets are used by the public, making up one of just two amenities blocks on the beachfront.
The life saving club also shares its home with the council’s paid lifeguards.
Mr Bell said club events were good for businesses.
“We have carnivals too, and nippers events, which are large events that attract business back into the community,” he said.
“It is not just in the commercial sense, it is all about educating and training, it is about teaching kids to swim and learn to save others, so we need the facilities.
“It is a case of we don’t have enough room to conduct training. It is tiny, having more space would give us that opportunity to be able to train more lifesavers.”
The club has a small space for training and often uses the hall, but that area gets hired out for commercial use.
“The life saving club is like the jewel in the crown of the walkway, ”Mr Bell said.
“The council has just spent half a million dollars on the sandstone walls and you have got the Boathouse there which is lovely, it would be nice to have bookends here and Shelly Beach.”
The club already has an existing development application approved allowing for three-storeys on the site, which would be the ideal outcome, Mr Bell said.