Save Sunshine Pool

THE TRUTH ABOUT BRIMBANK COUNCIL'S NEW AQUATIC PLANS!

Don't believe the council ads in the papers and in your mailbox!!

The truth is that the Brimbank Council is going to spend over 7 million filling in and burying our 50 metre pool, baby pool, learn to swim pool, lawns and cut down 9 tall shade bearing trees. They are replacing these with an indoor pool that is 3 feet deep at the deep end... (Call them and ask if you don't believe this!)

For over a decade we have been waiting and now they want to screw us royally! Our teenagers will still have nowhere to swim. Our schools will continue to bus their students to pools in other municpalities...

Why are we upset?
Because council have not consulted with the community appropriately and master planned the site properly. Master Plan options that were created by Peddle Thorpe Architects have never been released to the public. Council distanced themselves from their existence at VCAT claiming that master planning was not a requirement for a project of this nature! (despite it being a requirement of the $1.4 million from the Better Pools Fund).

FACT: The Brimbank Council has not called one community meeting about the Sunshine Pool site in over a decade.

What do we want?
It's not up to us; but the consensus appears to be that most people want as much water space as we previously had. We want at least a staged master plan for the site that will provide adequate water space for the 65000 individuals identified in the catchment area. We want to be able to go for a swim without having to travel to other municipalities. The Highpoint Pool is not an option. Highpoint has the same amount of water space as the Footscray Pool which is being forcibly closed by government. Highpoint is already packed to the boards.

The consultation process: 6000 pool users were asked for their postcode. (No other questions asked) No discussion is entered into, no input will be accepted or acknowledged. Concerned citizens asking questions at council meetings are labelled 'Political Minority, Thugs and Bullies". Questions asked are skimmed over or ignored. Council releases press releases trying to denigrate the characters of individuals calling for consultation with the pool.

At the solitary two Brimbank Aquatic Strategy public consultation sessions consultants advised residents who attended that the Sunshine Swim & Leisure Centre re-development was 'not' to be discussed!!!!

Brimbank Aquatic Strategy consultants (Sykes and Humphries) declared that the Brimbank Council instructed them 'not' to look at discuss the Sunshine Swim & Leisure Centre re-development process! (There are over forty witnesses who can attest to this)

Council cites this nobbled strategy as part of the 'extensive consultation'...

Any wonder why the community is upset and rallying!

HELP MR BRACKS!! WHY IS NO ONE LISTENING??

Why bury our three outdoor pools and replace with one shallow learn to swim and play pool when our suburb is screaming out for decent aquatic facilities?

The recent Department for Victorian Communities survey indicates Brimbank is the least physially active of Victoria's 79 local government areas and has very poor recreation and leisure facilities and infrastructures.

West of the Maribyrnong there are 6 public pools; while surrounding Ashburton for example, there are over 20 pools within a 5.5 km radius! Check it out.

It has taken the community 2 long years just to fight the council's previous intention of covering the 50 metre pool and a third of our treasured site with car parking and a road! (read more)

The Victorian government has criticised our council for not putting in submissions for money that would provide facilities and services for people who live in Brimbank. They have now granted 1.4 million dollars to the Brimbank Council to repair our pool site. Only problem is: The new council pool plans removes our 50 metre pool, our toddler pool, our learn to swim pool and replaces it with ONE small and shallow indoor learn to swim pool.

The proposed new plans mean we will have 60% 'less' water space than we had 14 years ago!

Despite the plans being inadequate and not what the community is asking for the council is spending thousands of dollars on leaflets and full page ads in the local papers trying to sell the demolishing of our 50 metre pool, baby pool and learn to swim pool as some thing 'new and improved'.

After the prolonged propaganda and council patting itself on the back for its 'community consultation process' in our local papers the grand plan for the Saving of the Sunshine Pool is an insult to the people of Sunshine, Ardeer, Albion, Braybrook and Deer Park and shows that there is little logic in Brimbank Council planning.

It appears that council is doing everything it can to bury our 50 metre pool, outdoor pools and lawns so that they will never be used or repaired, not ever. Once it is filled in and concreted over it is gone for the youth of Brimbank forever. Out of site, out of mind principal? Heads should roll over this. Coburg has three 50 metre pools, we will have none.

This would not happen in other suburbs; Brimbank Council is proving to be cold, heartless and unresponsive to the needs and services required by the good people of this electorate.

Contact the media, talkback radio, councilors and local representatives, your neighbours and spread the word that we are not going to sit around and accept this type of treatment just because of our postcode.

Council told us that this pool was leaking. Embarrasingly after a downpour it began to fill up! A few weeks later we noticed that tiles had gone missing!
Council closed the last of the outdoor pools in 1997 by stealth.
(Click this image to zoom in)

On the new council plans the new $9.5 million dollar pool appears to be smaller than the old learn to swim pool! Justin Madden, Natalie Suleyman, Sam David and Marilyn Duncan's new pool is also only 3 feet deep 'at the deep end'.

65000 residents are expected to be serviced by this new toddler pool.

The 50 metre pool, 25 metre outdoor pool (pictured above) and outdoor toddler pool will be buried.

There will be no outdoor pool.

Our 50 metre outdoor pool is also scheduled to be buried as part of the council and State Government plan.
(Click this image to zoom in)

Brimbank has the worst access to aquatic facilities / water space of any major city in Victoria.
Brimbank residents have one of the lowest (if not the lowest) per capita rates of access to aquatic services in Victoria.
Brimbank has one of the highest youth populations in Victoria
Brimbank Council keeps 'pretending' that they are 'saving the pool' - 14 years have passed!

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