Council set to bowl over WACA pool plan

While rich in cricket history, the ground itself has long had a sense of rolling decay.

Artist’s impression of the proposed WACA redevelopment.

Not since Dennis Lillee and Javed Miandad almost came to blows mid-pitch in 1981 has the WACA seen a fight like this.

Perth’s celebrity mayor-led council is just days away from voting against the centrepiece of the legendary cricket venue’s ambitious $100m reinvention, with broadcaster-cum-commentator-cum-columnist-cum-radio host Basil Zempilas and his fellow councillors expected to sink a plan for a new aquatic centre on the WACA’s northwestern corner.

The City of Perth’s expected abandonment of the pool, which will be considered at a council meeting on Tuesday, will throw a major spanner into plans that have been in the works for more than a year and complicate the WACA’s latest efforts to integrate into the community and preserve its future.

Test and Big Bash cricket were moved across the river to the gleaming Optus Stadium in 2018, leaving the WACA as little more than a venue for off-Broadway matches.

While rich in cricket history, the ground itself has long had a sense of rolling decay and has been in need of a major overhaul for decades.

The new plan is all about not just modernising the ground but also making the WACA more relevant to the public, and in particular the community at the eastern end of the Perth CBD that is expected to grow by 30,000 people in the coming years.

The pool – with six 50m lanes and two water slides wrapping around one of the ground’s concrete light towers – on the site of the old Inverarity stand was central to those plans. The broader redevelopment of the ground’s northern side has been designed to include a seven-day-a-week cafe, a sports medicine centre and after-hours GP, a gym, a function centre, a childcare facility, an all-abilities playground and a sensory room for autistic children. A large indoor multi-sport facility would also be the hub for the WACA’s wheelchair cricket competition.

The plans were first agreed between the WACA, the state government and the City of Perth back in February 2020, when the City of Perth was being run by commissioners appointed after the previous elected council was stood down after years of dysfunction. The federal and state governments in March unveiled the latest plans for the ground, which form part of a broader $1.5bn City Deal to reinvigorate the Perth CBD.

But the new Zempilas-led council, elected in October last year, has long harboured reservations about the pool plan. A business plan prepared by consultancy ACIL Allen – handed to the council last month – ripped through the pool proposal like Curtly Ambrose when he took 7 for 1 against the Aussies in 1993.

Documents prepared for the council by the city’s chief executive Michelle Roberts emphatically recommended against the pool plan, arguing it would place a heavy strain on the city’s finances. ACIL Allen’s modelling projected that the pool would require more than $3m a year in subsidies, based on 229,000 visits a year.

The city will feel it can get a pool elsewhere for less than the $25m under the WACA plan. There have previously been proposals for a barge pool in the Swan River itself, which could have broader tourist appeal.

ACIL Allen’s report noted that the group had met with a number of parties interested in developing private sector-led pool facilities within the city.

While the council’s involvement in the pool looks likely to be over, it is less clear what the council’s withdrawal could mean for the broader dynamic with the state government.

Strained relations between the council and the state could prove tricky.

A spokeswoman for the state government noted that the council only needed to contribute $35m to the broader state and federal-backed $1.5bn plan City Deal, of which the pool plan is part.

“The assumptions used in their report are deeply flawed, ignore the broader economic and health benefits a pool would contribute, and contradict the city’s own population targets,” the spokeswoman said.