At a mammoth extraordinary meeting of Holroyd Council recently, after hearing from 27 residents, councillors decided to keep the pools while also going ahead with Stage 1 of the mega Holroyd Aquatic Wellness Centre at Merrylands.
Total cost will be $65.4M with the Holroyd Regional Aquatic Wellness Centre on the site of the current Merrylands Swim Centre, costing $50M and the upgrade of Wentworthville costing $7.8M and Guildford $7.6M.
Council has been pushing for the mega aquatic and leisure centre since a 2013 report showed that the 50-year-old Wentworthville and Guildford were a drain on council’s resources.
Community uproar followed, with media campaigns and thousands of petition signatures, culminating in meetings with council.
More than 120 residents packed the gallery of Holroyd Function Centre for the meeting.
Only one of the speakers supported the aquatic centre, although he also wanted to keep the other pools open.
The other speakers wanted all three pools upgraded, but without the state-of-the-art wellness centre that they said would take business away from local gymnasiums.
The centre is to include a gym, therapy rooms and a cafe.
Opponents also cited unsatisfactory transport links to Merrylands from Wentworthville as a reason to retain the local pool.
The residents spoke after council’s consultant Michael King from SGL Consulting Group summarised his report, pointing out that the three pools could no longer compete with neighbouring large aquatic centres such as Wet ‘N Wild and Sydney Olympic Park.
“These days people are prepared to travel further for recreation,” he said.
Councillors were presented with four options: do not proceed with aquatic centre but upgrade all three pools; develop stage 1 of aquatic centre and upgrade Guildford and Wentworthville; develop aquatic centre, close Guildford and continue with Wentworthville; develop aquatic centre stage 1 and 2 and close Wentworthville and Guildford.
After the meeting, Mayor Greg Cummings hosed down the argument that the projected increase in populations of Wentworthville and Guildford warranted keeping the pools open.
“The fact is that, despite increased population over 50 years, there has been a decrease in usage of all the pools,” he told WSBA.
“In 2010, with a population of 100,600 in Holroyd, there were 192,000 visits to the pools, in 2013-14, with a population of 106,000, there were 187,000 visits.”
The ultimate cost of the aquatic centre, its size and facilities is dependent on council’s ability to attract state and federal funding. The consultant’s report said similar centres had attracted up to $26M in grants.
Some residents had mixed feelings about the decision, having preferred Option 1.
“This is a death by a thousand cuts - we can see council later saying they could not afford to upgrade Wenty and Guildford because the aquatic centre was too expensive,” one said.
