By Callum Ludwig
Yarra Ranges councillors have endorsed the next step for the region’s aquatic and leisure facilities at the Tuesday 9 April Council meeting.
Community consultation outcomes were considered and factored into the Aquatics and Leisure Strategy which was adopted and will help inform actions regarding local amenities up to 2033.
The discussion of the item began with a speaker from the gallery named Kathy stepping forward and asking Council what they planned to do with the land left over from the closing of the Kilsyth Centenary Pool.
“Many people are very disappointed because it leaves us without a good facility but what is the plan for the Hawthory Road land, is it going to be redeveloped there with a new leisure facility and a new pool,” she said.
“Will it be sold for residential development, if so, will the proceeds of that sale go towards building a new facility,”
“You’re saying it’s going to be 10 years before we can even get a new pool and you’ve got all these outdoor pools, which are supposedly dated, so that means that Yarra Ranges is going to be without a lot of leisure facilities or pools.”
Councillors approved a draft of the strategy for community consultation at the Tuesday 24 October Council meeting, which included the initial decision to close the Kilsyth Centenary Pool due to structural damage to ‘The Dome’ and the increased costs of running the facility.Council estimated it would have cost at leats $2 million for the pool to have been reopened,
Director of Built Environment and Infrastructure Hjalmar Phillipp was called upon to help respond to Kathy’s questions and said Council resolved in October what the plan is for the site.
“I’ll read out from the Council minutes, so following decommissioning, maintain the site as open space, in line with current public park and recreation land use, pending community consultation regarding its future use,” he said.
“Effectively, it will be decommissioned, maintain its open space, and nothing will happen until the community is engaged in what might happen next and that intent and objective is included in the draft aquatic strategy on page 17, which refers to exactly that point that we will create a plan first and talk to the community before any action on that site.”
An alternative motion was put forward by Streeton Ward Councillor Andrew Fullagar for the site to be retained as a public park and recreational land in the 24 October 2023 meeting.
Chandler Ward Councillor David Eastham spoke to the item and said 70 per cent of the respondents during community consultation rated the objectives of the strategy a four or five, with five being absolutely in favour, and to him that says Council got a lot right.
“This strategy was very data driven, though when I say data driven, I think that there was a really good balance between community feedback, community insights, balanced really well with the data that was provided to help drive some of those key elements within the strategy,” he said.
“I know that some of the members of facilities such as the Olinda Pool, and we know the history there, I know that they met with officers to discuss, you know, their presence within the strategy and what it meant for them as a facility, as obviously, theirs is unique, how that’s volunteer-run but an absolute success story there,”
“There’s significant investment to keep aquatic facilities up and running and to establish new ones, which we can’t do on our own so I look forward to those conversations progressing with state and federal partners to see what incredible facilities we can upgrade or deliver.”
All other aquatic and facilities will be retained and maintained, while others are slated for upgrades if all goes to plan:
The Monbulk Aquatic Centre will receive an additional program pool, an upgrade to leisure water, an extension of the gym and a new program room
The Yarra Centre will receive a new entry and café, an extension of the pool hall to incorporate a new warm water pool, spa and accessible change facilities, redevelopment and expansion of the gym and program rooms and the development of an external fitness zone
The Healesville Outdoor Pool will receive upgrades to improve the condition and life of the 50M pool shell, heating of the pool, an upgrade to the changerooms and potentially a small interactive water play feature.
Lyster Ward Councillor Johanna Skelton seconded the motion and said it’s a big plan with a big impact, but nevertheless leaves enough room in there for changes to happen.
“Obviously they are going to need to happen because we have lost the Kilsyth pool and we really have a big strong need, in particular in the urban area, for a great facility,” she said.
“We’ve got 10 aquatic facilities, including the free water play, for 160 something thousand people, which is a lot of facilities for one council to have and our visitation, I saw that the top-visited centre is the Yarra Centre with 153,000 per year,”
“I had a quick look up of some of the other big councils like Knox and Monash and they have, the number I saw though it may be bigger now, was 800,000 to a million visits per year at one of their facilities.”
Yarra Ranges Council holds a long-term view to investigate the possibility of an Integrated Aquatic and Leisure Centre in Lilydale to replace the Kilsyth Centenary Pool in the Urban area of the region.
Walling Ward Councillor Len Cox OAM, who has been a vocal opponent of the decision to close the Kilsyth Centenary Pool, said he still believes the consideration should be to open or rebuild the pool in Kilsyth.
“It’s been said that we put a flash new pool in Lilydale, but there’s a couple of problems with that; we don’t have the money and we all know we won’t get it from the federal and state government because they won’t fund the sort of money that you need for a heated pool, we need anything from $80 million and upwards to do it properly,” he said.
“Not only don’t we have the money for it, but we don’t have the land for it, we’ve been looking around for that for a little while and there’s nothing suitable in Lilydale.”
Despite his reservations, Cr Cox and all the other councillors voted in favour and the motion was passed unanimously.
