Published on Tuesday, 30 March 2021 at 2:09:30 PM
At the Council Meeting on 25 March 2021 members of the Bridgetown Swimming Club requested Council consider extending the aquatics season to include the Easter and School Holiday periods.
The current policy is that the aquatic complex opens on 1 November and closes on 31 March. Council formalized this policy in 2020 after considering trials in 2016, 2017 and 2018 when the aquatics complex season was extended to include the school holidays. These trials showed us that patronage was minimal even during the holidays. When air temperature dropped below mid 20c there was less attraction to swim, even with the pool heating in place.
Despite these previous trials, Councillors decided to extend the aquatics season this year for a further trial period and will review the usage and expenditure of the extended season to determine whether the season will be extended when planning for future years.
Reviewing the usage, cost of extending the season, and income generated by users through the extended season is important to ensure equity of rates expenditure. It is estimated that the cost of the extension could be around $11,000 if we opened standard opening hours. This extra expenditure has not been planned for in our annual budget or operating expenses. The Swimming Club members at the Council meeting suggested opening shorter hours, as a compromise. This was a great suggestion because most of our staff had already planned holidays with the expectation that season would end before Easter. Staff availability is always a challenge at the end of the season, because the pool operator staff usually move on to other jobs or take a well-earned break after keeping the complex running for 5 months every season.
The CEO was directed by Council to develop a roster to allow for the season extension giving regard to staff availability. This has now been done and the aquatics complex will be open from 11am to 3pm, with the exception of the Easter Long Weekend and Sundays when it will be closed. The extended season will finish on 17 April 2021.
You can view the opening dates and times here.
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