Gungahlin Pool has been closed since March 2020. Photo: Facebook.
Gungahlin residents will be forced to swelter through Canberra’s heatwave over the weekend and into next week without any relief from the local pool, which remains shut due to tiling problems.
With temperatures set to hit the high 30s over the weekend and crack the 40s by Monday, Yerrabi MLA Leanne Castley has again attacked the government for dragging its feet over the reopening of Gungahlin’s 50-metre pool.
“Gungahlin residents and families want answers,” Ms Castley said.
“They are the ones missing out over the school holidays when all the other pools are open and full.
“How insulting that they were advised to swim at Lakeside in Greenway which is 32-kilometres away.”
The pool was closed in March, along with the ACT’s six other government-owned pools due to COVID-19, but it has remained shut because of tiling issues.
The ACT Government said it spent $5,200 in April on minor repairs and that it is continuing to work with experts to determine what work is required on the pool 10 months after it was originally shut.
Leanne Castley has chastised the ACT Government for remaining vague on the Gungahlin Pool at the Leisure Centre. Photo: Supplied.
Sports Minister Yvette Berry’s office said no more information was available at this time and referred Region Media to a statement from December.
“It is disappointing that the 50-metre pool at the Gungahlin Leisure Centre continues to be closed and I share the community’s frustration,” Ms Berry said last month.
“ACT Property Group is working with experts to get the pool back online as soon as possible.
“Unfortunately, the timeframe for reopening the 50-metre pool will not be known until the right approach to repairing the pool has been developed by experts.”
The Gungahlin Leisure Centre, which houses the pool, reopened its gym at the start of July and the program pool a month later.
“It seems to me there is much more to this story than the Labor-Greens government is letting on,” Ms Castley said.
“Their message was basically ‘we’re working on it’. That is not good enough, not when the pool has been closed since March last year.
“Why don’t they just come clean and tell us the truth?”
The $28.7 million Gungahlin Leisure Centre was opened six years ago.
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