Demolition contractor Brian Hoysted and four workmen this week began the job that will finally bring to an end one of the most controversial issues in Wodonga in the past decade.

The 50-metre pool, two other smaller pools, kiosk, waterslide, change rooms and Wodonga Swimming Club’s rooms will all be cleared.

Asbestos was found and removed from the kiosk and change rooms yesterday.

It is a move Wodonga Council hopes can help flush out a buyer for the land located close to the city centre and Junction Place railway land redevelopment.

The council agreed in February to spend $150,000 to clear the pool site, which coincided with a failed last-ditch attempt to have the pool heritage listed.

A replacement pool complex has since opened in White Box Rise.

Mr Hoysted said removing the concrete pool, which was built in 1959, would be the most challenging part of the contract.

“It will all depend on how tough the concrete is at the bottom of the pool,” he said.

The contractor has previously worked on other major projects locally including the Thurgoona Plaza and Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Albury.

The pool site and the former police and court site, totalling 17,000 square metres, has been for sale since the pool closed last year.

Wodonga historian Jean Whitla has reluctantly accepted the fight to save the Stanley Street pool is over.

“It doesn’t break my heart because the people of Wodonga put up a fight to keep it,” she said.

“But the council of the day decided against it and we have to accept the final decision.

“I actually like the new pool but I think it is in the wrong spot. It should be in the centre of town not the middle of a housing estate.”

Mrs Whitla said the pool site and the rest of Richardson Park should be kept for open space and not sold for residential and business developments.

“This land is already in the ownership of the people of Wodonga,” she said.

“It is public land and should stay that way and be used in a complementary way with Junction Place.”

The Stanley Street pool site was cleared for multimillion-dollar accommodation and retail developments after a crucial planning scheme amendment was ticked off by the state government in 2010.