The saga of the re-development of the North Sydney Olympic Pool is not an isolated case, as a number of other ageing facilities in Sydney are set for closure and renovation.
Work on the North Sydney facility began in 2021 and a recent independent analysis warned that the project might not reach practical completion until November 2025, more than 16 months later than a revised contractual deadline of May 2024.
The original project was priced at around $30 million, but this blown out to a construction contract sum of $91.8 million, with the North Sydney Council putting a cap of $122 million to complete the project.
The delays have been blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic and issues around contracting suppliers before finalising aspects of the design, and they have left the council in a difficult financial position with lower liquidity and more debt.
Not only have North Sydney ratepayers gone without the amenity of a popular swimming pool for more than four years, but they are also facing a major rate hike after an acrimonious council meeting in February.
The council passed an application for a special rate variation (SRV), which will increase rates by 45% in 2025-2026 and by 29% in 2026-27. A rate rise totalling 87% had been applied for.
The saga is emblematic of the dilemma facing many councils as ageing pool infrastructure comes up for renewal, raising issues around lifecycle costs, maintenance, and the impact on rate payers amid a cost of living crisis.
Also in focus are SRV’s, which are determined by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART). In the case of North Sydney, IPART is expected to rule on the SRV application in June.
In New South Wales, the state government has a rate pegging policy which determines rate increases, and if councils need further funds they apply for a SRV.
In IPWEA’s view there is often an alternative to SRVs and that is accessing debt financing, which can shield ratepayers from hikes but can also be financially sustainable and prudent if councils have been running surplus annual budgets.
While the North Sydney pool example may be something of an outlier given its long delay and cost blowout, other New South Wales councils are also facing dilemmas over ageing pool infrastructure.
The popular harbour pool Andrew (Boy) Charlton is already closed for renovation, along with pools at Epping and Canterbury, while three others are slated for closure at Leichhardt, Mount Druitt and Botany.
The Inner West Council is responsible for the Leichhardt pool, where $55 million will be spent to build a new children’s pool, and new 50 metre and 25 metre pools.
Mayor Darcy Byrne recently told Sydney media that the council would not increase rates to pay for the project.
“There are a lot of pools coming to the end of their life cycle at the same time … [locals] understand if you don’t undertake the renovations and plan for it properly, what happens is what we’ve seen across other councils in Sydney – these things end up closing,” Byrne told the Sydney Morning Herald.
At Botany, the 50 year old pool will close in April for a new $63 million renovation, while at Mount Druitt the renovation is expected to take two years and cost $40 million.
At Epping, the Parramatta Council is struggling with a budget blowout to a project originally costed at $26 million, while the renovation of the pool at the Willoughby Leisure Centre has been delayed by the discovery of asbestos.
In 2024, the Royal Lifesaving Association released analysis which showed that over the next decade Australia faces a $8 billion bill, largely to be footed by local councils and rate payers, as public swimming pools built in the 1960s reach the end of their lifecycles.
The analysis looked at the state of around 500 public pools and estimated that in addition to the $8 billion to be spent in the next decade, another $3 billion will be needed in the 15 years after that for another group of pools not in immediate need of report.
The report also did a ‘stock take’ of public pools, finding that in 2022 there were 1306 public pools built and owned by the government sector, with another 807 publicly accessible but owned privately.
Of these facilities, 79% of pools in areas with the lowest decile under the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) analysis were publicly owned, while 74% of pools in areas with the highest SEIFA decile are privately owned. 77% of pools in regional areas are publicly owned.
The average public pool was built in 1968.
RJ Houston, the general manager of the RLSA, said that the report had found that as many as 40% of public pools were about to reach the end of their life.
The funding of renovations has been controversial in affluent North Sydney, but as so many of the pools are in less affluent areas it remains to be seen how the funding of many of these pools can be refurbished.
The report also quantified the social and health benefits provided by the pools, and estimated that if Australia lost 10% of this pool infrastructure it would also suffer an annual loss of $910 million in these benefits.
