Thursday 21 September 2017

Dive into Swansea Swimming Pool

BY JESSICA ROUSE

More people will be diving into Swansea Swim Centre after an off-season maintenance upgrade.

The improvements were undertaken during the centre's closure over the cooler months and were worth around $700,000.

Mayor Kay Fraser believes its been money well spent.

Starting blocks. Image supplied.
"The pools are one of our most used facilities out at Lake Macquarie. We have a 50-metre heated pool out at Swansea so we had to do a new line and new membrane in the pool. We've also had to remove all the old pebbles around the edge of the pool and we've lowered that and put some sandstone in that."

The adjustable starting blocks are similar to those at Sydney Olympic Park so swimmers have the best possible facilities and the safest.

The improvements have been given the tick of approval from council's professional lifeguards who tested it out on Tuesday for their annual pre-season challenge.

Council has been systematically improving all of their pools across the area with a $2.4 million upgrade to West Wallsend in 2015, improvement to Speers Point, and there's a planned $4 million upgrade for Toronto Swim Centre as well.

The Swansea Pool upgrades are finished just in time for Learn to Swim Week which kicks off this Saturday.

"It's a very popular pool, the one out at Swansea and we've spent just under $1 million there but it's really well worth it, the community loves it at Swansea and it's very well used," said Mayor Fraser.

Mayor Kay Fraser and lifeguards Image supplied.