Phillip Pool has reopened for 2024, but what about next season, and the one after? 'Nobody knows'

Phillip Pool is back for another year.

It’s a little later than Canberra’s other outdoor swimming pools, such as those in Dickson and Manuka, which opened for the season on 28 October and Civic, which opened on 26 October, but the 50-metre pool at Phillip reopens to the public on Friday, 8 November.

The news arrives with a sigh of relief for locals like new independent MLA Fiona Carrick.

Ever since Geocon bought the Phillip Pool in 2022, together with the neighbouring ice-skating rink, doubts have hung over the site’s future. What didn’t help was the fact it was closed for maintenance for more than a year and only briefly opened in the summer of 2023/24.

The latest update from the developer, received in September, was that the pool would reopen in November on a date to be announced.

Ms Carrick is also a member of the advocacy group, ‘Save Phillip Pool’, and even took the issue to the ACT election, arguing Woden deserved more investment in “social infrastructure”.

“The announcement of a new aquatic centre in Commonwealth Park continues the consolidation of social infrastructure in the inner north and fails to address the long-standing need for better access to aquatic facilities for residents of Woden, Weston Creek and parts of the Inner South,” she said during her campaign.

With seemingly normal operations restored, Ms Carrick says news the pool is reopening is “very exciting”.

“We’re thinking about having another pool party.”

This is a reference to an event held by the group in February, shortly before the pool shut for the season.

“We had a barbecue going on in the central green area; there were little kiddies and babies in the little pool, toddlers in the toddler pool, and teenagers just lying around,” she says.

“It showed us what it can be.”

But now, having won a seat in the Legislative Assembly, her campaigning isn’t done.

Geocon is obliged – as per the site’s lease requirements – to include a public pool in any future development. But Ms Carrick says “we’re still not certain what’s going to happen to the outdoor pool” given there are plans to construct a new 25-metre indoor pool nearby.

“Once that requirement is met by the indoor pool, there is presumably no longer any need for the outdoor pool and so that part of the site can be developed,” she says.

“Nobody knows what Geocon’s plans are yet.”

Then there’s the matter of the ice rink.

The Phillip Ice Skating Centre, built 10 years after the pool in 1980, is open all year round. But Ms Carrick fears this one will become obsolete when the ‘Canberra Arena’, an ice-sports facility earmarked for Tuggeranong, eventually arrives.

This was a 2020 election promise, and the project’s page on the ACT Government website lists a completion date in 2025, but given there’s no movement on the site, this looks unlikely.

“But if that’s ever built, Geocon could potentially develop the Phillip ice rink into a residential area,” Ms Carrick says.

Solutions she hopes to take to government involve buying the site back from Geocon, giving Geocon management of the public facility, or building a new aquatic centre in Woden – but either way, “we want a 50-metre pool”.

“We understand development, we understand densification, but we want it to be done well,” she says.

“The ice rink and the pool are great social and economic generators for the community, and we want to keep them. We’ve already lost enough.”

In a statement to Region, Geocon confirmed the pool will reopen for the 2024/2025 season, and the ice rink will “remain open for the foreseeable future”.

Phillip Pool will open on 8 November. Operating hours will be 6 am to 7 pm, Monday to Friday, and 8 am to 6 pm, Saturday and Sunday.