Ratepayers rally for the Battle of Bexley

Tonight (Wednesday December 3) is crunch time for the future of the $30 million Bexley Swimming and Leisure Centre.

On November 30, residents in the southern Sydney municipality of Rockdale massed for a rally in favour of the project, and tonight will witness a showdown between councillors who want to approve the tender and seven who have been "hiding".

While almost everyone seems in favour of the pool being approved – the mayor, many councillors, the chamber of commerce and the ratepayers – the proposal is being stymied by a seemingly absurd boycott by six Liberal councillors and one independent.

The pool is part of a capital works program which also includes a library, the already completed refurbishment of the town hall, and a new youth centre.

The council’s plan is to fund the pool via the sale of a Chapel Street carpark for which they have already been offered $48 million. The sale would not only pay for all the capital works, but also pay for another much larger carpark and still leave the council $10 million in the black.

The problem isn’t that the boycotting councillors won’t vote for the sale or the pool project: they won’t even attend council meetings if the sale is on the agenda, or they walk out once the item is raised. This denies the council a quorum and so leaves the sale in limbo. Without the sale guaranteeing funding, the tender cannot be finalised.

The boycotting councillors will not divulge what their issue is with the pool or the carpark sale.

Rockdale Mayor Shane O’Brien says that when the council adopted the plan in 2011, they said they would look at the capital reserves and also at the need to sell “lazy assets” to unlock their value to help fund it.

“Nothing has changed from that,” he says. “We got to the point where we had to make a decision to sell one of these assets – the carpark – and as it turned out the value was such that it would fund all of our capital shortfalls across all those projects, and actually increase the carpark spaces by 42 per cent. The plan was supported by the Chamber of Commerce.

“But when we got to the time to actually do it, the Liberal councillors – for whatever reason – decided they would not attend or would leave council rather than have the sale of the carpark addressed. This leaves us without a quorum.”

He says that because they couldn’t consider the sale, they can’t consider the pool tender because the funding wouldn’t be in place.

“This has been going on since September the 3rd.”

Local Government Minister Paul Toole, a Nationals member, is seen as a potential saviour despite coming from the other side of the political fence. He expressed concern about the seven councillors’ behaviour and issued a performance improvement order, and is ready to issue an order reducing the required quorum from eight to seven, meaning a vote can take place.

“It came to a head last week when the minister intervened and said he’d grant us a seven person quorum,” says O’Brien. “The council thanked the minister and we have scheduled both these items to be decided on December 3. If the Liberals don’t turn up, the minister will issue the order and we will go to a seven person quorum. But we’re hopeful the message will have got through.

“If we do agree to dispose of the land, then we’ll vote on the tender.”

The new centre is proposed to have a 50 metre outdoor pool, a 25 metre indoor pool, a children’s pool, program pool, gym, café and amenities.

O’Brien says that while the upfront capital costs would be relatively high with this proposal, the whole of life costs would be smaller, the ongoing subsidy from the council budget would be greatly reduced, and the centre could possibly even generate a small positive return – a rare situation for a local government swimming facility.

Residents have been without a pool since April when the old pool was closed.

UPDATE FROM THE Build Bexley Pool Facebook Page :

Update: 

Last night in closed session, Council formally declined to accept any of the tenders to build the New Rockdale City Aquatic Centre. 

It was also resolved to sell the Chapel Street land.

However, Council also determined to enter into negotiations with the preferred tenderer and others that tendered if necessary, to enter into a Design and Construct Guaranteed maximum price contract to the value of $24M. This amount will be in addition to amounts already expended to date. Importantly, the General Manager has been delegated authority to execute this contract. This means it should not have to come back to Council for further approval.

Whilst this represents a compromise, and will obviously see a centre with fewer facilities than those approved in the current Development Application, it is sufficient money to build a very good facility. It will probably require a fresh development application, modified/new plans etc which will add time, but will guarantee the long term future of a swimming facility at Bexley. It will add approximately 6 months to the process, meaning we will not see construction commence until around May next year. However, that is subject to further advice. 

Hopefully, as a minimum, the new facility will include a new 50mX8 lane outdoor pool deep enough for water polo with covered grandstand. An indoor 25mX8 lane combined competition/learn to swim pool, an outdoor children's leisure/splash pad, café, new change rooms and amenities. These four components are considered to be the core elements of the aquatic centre.

Depending on how far $24m will stretch, a gym, crèche, sauna and steam may be included in that order of priority.

Whilst the result is somewhat disappointing, it nevertheless represents a very good outcome and will result is a terrific, new, indoor/outdoor facility for the whole community.

Without the persistent pressure of residents and supporters, we would not have achieved this result given the level of resistance to the proposal.

Click here to see a very interesting state-based 7:30 Report story on the impasse.

Images: Build Bexley Pool Facebook Page 

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