They work for us

Proposed Kapiti Olympic Aquatic Centre - Scaled back slightly

Where do I start? Front page on my local rag - Kapiti News - states that the Olympic Sized swimming pool that has been years in the planning might actually start soon, BUT (you must have known there was a BUT coming), BUT the plans are being scaled down.

It seems that the 50m Standard Sized Olympic Pool will be only 25m long, and 2 feet deep (see note). Now last time I checked, 25m is only about half way there, and 2 feet deep* is great for hilarious running races but not quite good enough for swimming. There are other cut backs too, such as only one water slide instead of two (the common sense approach of having one that can handle much smaller kids than the big scary one has gone down the drain) and no doubt, the showers will be cold to save the expense of buying taps with a red dot.


Firstly, I fully support building an Olympic sized swimming facility. It is great for the region, great for the sport and great for bringing out-of-towners in for quality swimming meets, which therefore is great for local business. I do not support building a 25m pool 2km down the road from an existing 25m pool (I kid you not).

I'd pay increased rates, make personal contributions and if necessary come up with some ideas on how to raise the extra dosh needed. But that's not the point. The point is that the Council is supposed to work FOR US.

Seeminglyarbitrary announcements that they are creating a 25m paddling pool just 2km away from the current 25m pool so they can save a few million dollars off a 20 million dollar facility is just not on.

If they've already held a meeting to discuss this in the kids fiction section of the library Tuesday last month at 9:45am, well, that doesn't count. This should have been front page news in previous editions: "Warning, Council about to waste your ratepayer money on half a pool. Plans devised by halfwits."

Secondly, this deal has been under discussion for years. If they had sorted this out in a timely fashion, then it probably would have been millions of dollars cheaper, and delivered earlier. The Council have already spent over a million dollars in the so called "planning" stages, and will spend a whole new pile of money getting everything redesigned to be smaller. And then there's the arduous consent process.

Thirdly, I am lead to believe the current council (up for re-election, hurray!) promised to sort out the pool as part of their election platform 3 years ago. Time's up guys. Bye-bye.

Fourth, the news that the council might be moving the location of the pool makes me think that a yo-yo would appear more stable.

Fifth, land ownership issues with a Maori trust have come into question. Why am I not surprised? Apparently., the Council has to offer back council land to the Trust after a high court hearing. I'd be slightly interested to know what that was all about, and how many more generations of endless litigation and interruption to building our community we can expect to endure.

For goodness sake, if the plans change to build an Olympic sized pool at half the proper size, then before you spend 90% of the money, wait until after the elections so I can do my best to ensure you aren't there. Meanwhile, what candidates for Council have a policy on doing things right the first time?

I'll be checking this out and posting back here, on the off chance they do vanity searches. I see there's a guy called Guru running for Council, he sounds like he knows what he is doing.

*Actually, they haven't confirmed the actual depth, so this figure may possibly, by some amazing fluke, be incorrect. I suspect they are stupid enough to make it only 2 feet deep (just imagine the cost savings on paint), but then again they might make it one foot deep and completely surprise me because I thought I was being ridiculous.