Thames needs a swimming pool.
That much was clear from the well-attended public forum and the elected members at Thames Community Board’s meeting last week.
But the deeper issue, no matter what shape the new pool takes, will be affordability.
Community board members opted to recommend a $26.2 million all-indoor facility on Thames High School grounds as the most affordable option to replace the ageing Centennial Pool.
But there’s a sinking feeling that the costs of a new pool falling solely on the shoulders of Thames ratepayers will create financial stress and limit smaller communities.
The recommended option – which now will go to Thames-Coromandel District councillors for a decision – would contain three indoor pools: a learn-to-swim pool for younger children, a programme pool for therapy, aqua walking and learn-to-swim for older children, and a 6-lane 25-metre lap pool. There would also be an indoor splash pad.
The average annual cost per ratepayer over 30 years would be around $682 – if funded entirely by the Thames Ward.
But community board members at the March 19 meeting questioned whether the wider district could, or would, help shoulder the costs.
Members of the public did say that the Centennial Pool was well-used by people all over: at the Thames Valley Primary Schools interschool swimming sports on March 21, there were more than 43 schools represented from across the Hauraki and Thames-Coromandel.
“The affordability is a huge worry, and I think we need to do all that we can to talk to our council colleagues and try to explain that yeah, there are projects that local communities are responsible for, but then there’s projects that just, clearly, are way beyond the ability of any community to afford,” Cr Martin Rodley said.
“If we are restricted to local funding for this pool, then further down the track that restricts Whangamata to local funding for a pool because they won’t be able to afford it either, and Whitianga and Matarangi and all our other smaller communities.
“It troubles me greatly the ‘local versus the district’ funding,” he said, “because you just end up with places that can afford having facilities and others not.”
Board chair Adrian Catran said he was “hoping and praying” that financial support would come their way from neighbouring district councils.
“I don’t know of any other community board in New Zealand that is wrestling with a $26.2 million problem,” he said. “It’s way beyond our scope to be dealing with it and that’s the reason why… we will be escalating that up toward the district councils.”
Deputy chair Rob Johnston shared the same sentiments, and said the pool decision would be a “really difficult” one when it came to securing funds.
He thanked the members of the public who confided in the community board that they were “really stressing out about this from an affordability point of view”.
“There’s public sentiment that everybody wants a pool – even the people who can’t afford it.
I’ve spoken to people who say ‘I really want a pool but… I can’t afford another X number on my rates.”
According to council, the Richmond Street court site on land leased from Thames High School was the strongest local site for a new pool, though in its 2024 community aquatic survey, an all-indoor facility was the community’s third most preferred option.
A sub-regional facility at Kōpū South, which scored highly in the survey, had been evaluated in the business case as not viable for Thames ratepayers without additional financial support.
BY KELLEY TANTAU
