Yass Valley Council will tomorrow night decide on whether or not they will make the current Yass War Memorial Pool location available for lease to a private operator.
Director of Infrastructure & Assets at Yass Valley Council, James Dugdell, explained the recommendation being made to Council in further detail.
“The idea would be to lease the land to someone for 20 years for them to build and operate a heated pool on, so that we have a heated pool in Yass.”
“This is an attempt to deliver something that isn’t currently within the budget, so we are going to try a different approach and we have had an approach of people that are interested in doing it.”
“It has consistently been a request for people within the Yass Valley from my understanding for at least the last four or five years,” he said.
Dugdell said the plans for the pool have been linked into the greater masterplan for Victoria Park, which is a requirement of being able to lease any piece of Council land.
“This links with the masterplan for Victoria Park, which then links to a plan of management for Victoria Park which is the next step. We have to have a plan of management because under the Local Government Act once we have a plan of management, we can then do things with the land.”
“Why this has come at the same time is because part of the notification period is that if you wish to lease any piece of Council land for a 20 year period, we have to have a 28 day notification.”
“This is so we can do the necessary community consultation and the like, before we get to a point where we can actually release an expression of interest for someone to lease land at Victoria Park, in order to build a heated pool,” he said.
Should the Councillors vote to allow the process to begin, it will involve five key steps before a lease can be agreed upon. The five steps are as follows:
- Community consultation with interested parties to establish the range of services to be provided for the existing pool and the proposed indoor pool (2-4 weeks)
- Notification of the proposal to lease for the land in accordance with the Local Government Act 1993 (5 weeks).
- If no objections are received, development, advertisement, and assessment of the Expression of Interest for potential providers (8-10 weeks) If objections are received the proposal will be returned to Council for consideration and a request made to the Minister for approval or the proposal halted for re-evaluation.
- Expression of Interest results presented to Council for approval.
- Issue of a lease for a period of up to 21 years after the Victoria Park Plan of Management is approved (as appropriate).
These plans were triggered early this year when a private company enquired about suitable locations to build an indoor heated pool for commercial purposes. However, whilst there is confidence within Council that a deal with a private entity can be made, it won’t be made without conditions.
“As with all things commercial I’m reasonably confident but it’ll be up to the commercial providers at the time when we go out, whether or not they think it’s a feasible deal, and under what conditions because at the moment we haven’t put in there what conditions we might be able to accept it under.”
“I’m confident that someone wants to build a heated pool in Yass. It’s just whether or not what we ask them to provide fits with their business model,” said Dugdell.
Operation of the current Yass War Memorial Pool costs the Council approximately $100,000 annually. If a private entity is willing to shed them of that cost and build an indoor heated pool alongside it, that appears to be an excellent result for both parties.
However this resolves, at the very least, it means Council have reciprocated the strong desire within the community for a heated pool in Yass.
Max O’Driscoll
