Batemans Bay pool and art centre plans advance with financial concerns

Where are the meeting rooms ??? Why is there an exercise gym in this building ??? Councillors and the Mayor should all hang their heads in shame !!! The Council Project Officer did not even take the architects to see the meetings rooms we have in the present Community Centre. He admitted it. I know this because I was a community representative at one of the meetings when he admitted this. The architects looked blank then said they would go and look at the present Community Centre. We did not realise at that stage that the architects already had completed 3 designs for submission to Council !!! The architects have taken their cue from Council. This massive contempt by Council for ratepayers and residents is beyond belief. This Council and its project officers could not organise a pie stall, let alone a large McKay Park Community Centre. Shame, shame, shame Liz Innes and the lot of you !!!

The old bowling club was purchased over three years ago supposedly to build a “gateway development’ but this site isn’t where the proposed center will be! Go figure!
The development is still hoped to now be a “legacy” development but seems to fall short of present day needs let alone having any capacity for future growth!
Progressively, since an initial strategy report in February 2017, an incomplete business case and concept designs were prepared but the plans didn’t include an Olympic length pool, which the town now has, its community use spaces are too few and too small, and the performance space is also too small to lure star attractions – all things that the community has pointed out but ignored repeatedly by council. We see progressively more compromises being made in the component features ostensibly to meet the ill-informed initial grants.
It now appears there is a funding shortfall rumoured to be in excess of $10 million yet after all this time council still can’t say what the final cost will be nor if it will be affordable. Oddly the story line given two years ago for there not being a 50 metre pool or a larger performance space was that they would make the project unaffordable without yet another special rate increase! More compromises and increasing costs yet council won’t come clean!
The latest design is the best looking one yet but if it can’t be afforded, it should not proceed until it can be done properly in part if not in total.

Plan D ( the 6th Concept Plan mind you!)is not costed. $4 million of taxpayers’ money has already been spent on this project. This is in addition to the $51 million grant monies sitting in the council’s bank account. An updated business case has not been presented as promised by the General Manager. Plan D passed & approved by a majority of councillors last Tuesday does not include an Olympic pool. The community is now excluded & total control of the Mackay Park Project now rests with the bureaucrats. When the community was asked for feedback in January 2019 the 50 m pool was not included as an option. Overwhelmingly a large majority of those who responded to this most recent council survey stated that they wanted a 50-metre pool included in the new complex. The Batemans Bay pool community as far back as 10 or 15 years ago maintained advocacy for a new indoor heated 50 m pool & more recently lobbied to replace the old 50m pool with a new Olympic pool. Council voted to bulldoze the old pool without any community consultation. NB the community responded by writing in their own responses for an Olympic pool on Concept Plans A, B & C even though the bureaucrats refused to include the people’s choice of a 50 m pool in the survey questions on these 3 concept plans!
The council claims that it fully consulted the community but that is not true. Council only did so AFTER they eliminated the possibility of ever including a new Olympic pool in any of the options. This was not a transparent or democratic process by any means. It was a matter of Batemans Bay, the most populous district in Eurobodalla, being bullied to endure 2 hr return trips to either Ulladulla or Narooma aquatic centres to access an Olympic pool for training, lap swimming, competitive school (11 local PSSA schools are excluded along with several colleges & high schools) district, interdistrict, state & even national carnivals are no more at Batemans Bay. The Batemans Bay Swimming Club is totally compromised: no 50 m pool!
Narooma is the council’s preferred centre for competitive swimming because the right-winged political group has the numbers in Council & they allegedly vote in accordance with the brief received from their public servants. Allegedly the 9 elected councillors are the puppets of the public servants rather than the masters of the public servants. It’s a sad scenario especially with an alleged potential massive budget blowout gap ie. in addition to the $51 million grant monies already in the bank it is alleged that Plan D will need an additional $10 to $20 million more if it is to be built that is without a 50 m pool of course but with 5 other uncosted water bodies and an oversized new gym, hardly required given that BB has 6 gyms already, each struggling to make ends meet. The questions are 1. why the blowout & 2. can the ratepayers afford the secret annual recurrent running costs?
A senior Director said at the Council Meeting on Tuesday that the public servants would have to prioritise essential inclusions when another new Design Plan, Plan E, was issued for tenders. Interesting that the community has no say or input into what the essential inclusions list will be or in what is to be excluded. I’d start by including an outdoor Olympic pool & excluding the gym. Councillors have failed to focus & did not give this now alleged $70 million project the due diligence it rightly deserved. They have not consulted the community but given them what the public servants’ brief instructed them to do ie.
“They will get what we give them not what they want!”
One Councillor stated during the debate at last Tuesday’s Council Meeting that if the gap appeared to be insurmountable then her colleagues could try their luck in her abandoned gold mine & if that fails to produce pay dirt then they could send the $51 million back. That is $26 million to the NSW Government & $25 million to the Federal Government. This doesn’t sound sensible, feasible or in any way logical to me! In fact, I think the whole saga of the Mackay Park Project in Batemans Bay needs an independent enquiry. Accountability needs to be sheeted home! Allegedly the PerfEx group are not happy with the theatre & gallery spaces but they can give their own opinions. $70 million is a reasonable amount of money that if used wisely should deliver an aquatic/arts complex that can serve our community now & long into the future. This Mackay Park Project promises to give the Coordinator Stephen Phipps some big headaches! He doesn’t have costings or a start date and the building costs are escalating according to the Senior Director of Building & Infrastructure! We may just end up with another gym or a white elephant? Heaven forbid!
What do you think?