C'mon Geocon, throw the community a bone and commit to Phillip pool

Why didn't the ACT government revoke the lease? Put in managers who do a brilliant job at places such as the Dickson swimming pool? The owner of the Phillip pool, Dr Wayne Houghton, failed last summer and this summer to get it open to the public. And the government appeared to do nothing but send off letters that were studiously ignored.

So much so, it appeared when Sports Minister Yvette Berry was last month writing to Dr Houghton asking him for clarification on when the Phillip pool might be opened this summer, he was already in the throes of a deal to sell the lease to Geocon.

Phillip pool, of course, was an outlier, leased by a private individual, who aimed to make a profit. And there was the accompanying ice rink, which was meant to be the pool's saviour but has probably turned out to be its destroyer.

Most of the other pools in Canberra are public assets managed by contractors and subsidised by the government - pools like Stromlo, Civic, Dickson, Manuka, Gungahlin and Lakeside in Tuggeranong.

Even before Stromlo opened, the public pools were collectively attracting more than a million visits a year. In 2018-19, Canberrans flocked to the outdoor pools - visits to Dickson Pool increased by 25 per cent and at Manuka Pool by 15 per cent that year. There is an appetite in Canberra for outdoor swimming pools. For the sense of space, the sunshine, the trees, the shade. Indoor pools are great in winter but feel like saunas in summer.

Dickson Aquatic Centre Pty Ltd - led by Chris Graham and Shay Kennedy - has managed the Dickson Pool Facility on behalf of the ACT government since 1996. The couple took the pool from a concrete wasteland to a city oasis, always emphasising the community element. Dickson did receive government funding, but pools are expensive to run and a lot of swimmers need to go through the turnstiles to keep them running, even with subsidies. It takes passion and commitment to run a public pool. And, yes, inevitably government support.

Operating as a private concern, Dr Houghton always maintained there was no Phillip pool without the ice rink - it kept the pool, ahem, afloat. He told a government committee: "We have been only able to keep the pool open because the ice rink subsidises the pool. The pool is a loser; it loses all the time. But the revenue from the ice rink has been able to keep the pool open. So now we are confronting a situation where, if we cannot do any other development on the site, we do not have a viable operation."

Dr Houghton never returned phone calls when asked to comment about Phillip pool's future. His manager and default spokesman John Raut made it clear the government's intention since 2016 to build a rival ice rink meant Dr Houghton was reluctant to invest any money in the Phillip site. And it seems none was. And now the right buyer has come along. Geocon. Bye bye pool, no matter what they say.

But wouldn't it be great, as an act of goodwill, after all the money Geocon has reaped from the city, that it did actually keep and upgrade Phillip pool and created a true community asset? That we don't have to wait for the inevitable 'Oh no, the pool is beyond saving and the whole site will be levelled' report. But, hey, here's another 200 units with a 25-metre pool stuck inside that no one will actually use?

Can't we do better than that?

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