A lack of interest in operating Greater Hume’s pools has cost council’s bottom-line more than $50,000, but Mayor Heather Wilton is optimistic a leasee will be found if council decides to seek one.
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Environment and planning director Colin Kane has recommended a tender be opened for the management of all five council swimming pool complexes.
No contractors could be secured to run any of the shire’s pools for the 2017-2018 season, forcing council to pay for unexpected day labor.
This resulted in a $59,076 blowout in the pools budget, “exacerbated by the need to commission two new swimming pool facilities at Henty and Holbrook”.
The new Henty and Holbrook pools, totalling $3.8 million, were finished last year.
Mr Kane has suggested tenders to manage the complexes for the next three years with a one year option be advertised, with councillors to vote on the issue on Wednesday night.
Cr Wilton said the pools have been leased on and off for a number of years, and that attracting contractors to manage the pools had not historically been difficult.
“We’ve had a few hiccups where we had to take on a pool we didn’t anticipate, which has been more related to personal matters,” she said.
“We couldn’t get any interest last year for the pools, so we had to make a decision and decided to run them ourselves.
“To be quite honest, that’s probably turned out not necessarily in our favour, but we now have a baseline of what the costing is, with two new pools that have come into be.”
Cr Wilton said if council decided to put out tenders, a better picture could be put to interested parties about the management of the complexes.
“I think maybe (the reason no contractors could be found) was the fact we had new pools as well, but we have a much better idea bout how they run,” she said.
“There might be a group interested in taking the whole lot or a number.
“I think we can put out a good tender, if we vote that way, and we’ll hopefully have a reasonable amount of interest.”
Council will also vote on adopting the Draft Delivery Program 2017/2021, and Draft Operational Plan 2018/2019 on Wednesday.