A plan to enhance Blackheath Memorial Park facilities by making greater use of the nearby pool pavilion has been abandoned by the council.
A campaign by the Friends of Blackheath Pool and Memorial Park (FBPMP) group last year had convinced the council to explore modifications that would allow non-paying park visitors to access pool amenities, including the toilet block and kiosk, year-round.
But with community representatives and councillors unimpressed with the results of a report tabled at last week’s council meeting, the decision was made not to proceed despite some pleas for further investigations.
FBPMP spokesman Simon Hare said the group’s chief aim was to find an “imaginitive solution” that would avoid the need to build a new $300,000 toilet block in the park, contained in a preliminary budget for 2012/13.
“Our biggest issue was that we originally suggested this to save council money, but also that there are perfectly good facilities [within pool grounds] that we wanted to share with the park,” said Mr Hare.
“The pool’s only open four months a year so at the moment the toilets in the pavilion are shut off from any use eight months of the year . . . They’re in perfectly good order and we said ‘surely you can come up with an imaginitive way to access those toilets’.”
While the council report did outline a way to share the toilet block between pool and park users, FBPMP rejected the necessity for a major overhaul to the pavilion that would have halved the changeroom and shower facilities at the expense of more toilets.
Council staff also determined that reopening the kiosk within the pavilion and making it accessible to park users was not economically viable based on available park visitation figures.
Ward 1 councillors Eleanor Gibbs and Janet Mays had hoped to have the item deferred to allow further investigations.
Once it became clear the mood in the chambers was to abandon the process, Clr Gibbs suggested a more sinister debate was being played out.
“I think we’re having another debate by stealth here . . . I do think we’re having a phantom debate about whether to close Blackheath Pool,” said Clr Gibbs.
The claim was quickly rejected by Ward 4 councillors Mark Greenhill and Fiona Creed.
Clr Greenhill led the effort to scuttle the existing plan, framing it as a battle for funds between Upper and Lower Mountains.
“To my mind, Blackheath Pool seems to demand more and more money where its patronage, in my view, has not yet been evidenced to warrant it,” said Clr Greenhill. “Too much money is being spent on Blackheath Pool, while I say too little is spent on the whole of the Lower Mountains.”
While $300,000 has been provisionally allocated in the 2012/13 draft capital works program for construction of a stand-alone toilet block in the park, councillors will still be able to debate the merits of that project when the budget allocation is finalised later in the year.
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