Angry swimmers vow to boycott Albury and Wodonga pools

About 100 packed a room in Albury’s Albion Hotel to voice disgust at the Twin Cities’ councils approving a deal with a new pool operator involving lane hire fees.

Swimming and water polo club chiefs held the crisis forum in response to confirmation from pool contractor Aligned Leisure that the fees will apply from January 1.

Former Albury mayor Stuart Baker urged the audience to boycott the pools until the councils came “to their senses”.

“I don’t think there’s any transparency or consultation in this sneaky thing they’ve done and it’s very poor,” Mr Baker said.

The bulk of crowd members raised their arms in support of a boycott, with a working group formed to determine its exact details.

Mr Baker also encouraged people to take their concerns to councillors.

“Clog them up, line up to talk to your councillor,” he said.

“You want them to be dead sick of us.”

One councillor, Wodonga’s Tim Quilty, attended the gathering.

He said afterwards he had sympathy for those facing higher costs due to the fees.

“It’s no secret I’m in favour of raising more revenue (from council assets) but we don’t want to shutdown swimming clubs,” Cr Quilty said.

The forum heard a family of three swimmers faces a $1050 bill if Wodonga City Swim Club shares $9215 in fees over its 30 members.

Ovens and Murray swimming and water polo administrators as well as Albury Swim Club president Phil Evans addressed the gathering.

OM water polo executive member Matt O’Connell said the aquatic sports wanted no fees for the coming season and 12 months to negotiate a resolution.

OM water polo association president Brendan Dickie said the lane fees being applied by Melbourne-based Aligned Leisure could kill off pool pursuits.

“I don’t want our sports to die a slow death over five or six years because of one group that has come in from out of town,” Mr Dickie said.

OM District Swimming Association president Brendon Shiels said his member clubs were being made to be tax collectors.

“They’re treating us as if we’re making a great deal of money and we’re not,” Mr Shiels said.

“We are not businesses, we are small clubs.” 

Albury Swim Club life member Wayne Gould said he was appalled by his city’s council, saying for 99 years through “goodwill” his club had received free lane use.

He urged those gathered to object to councillors as “they hate being hated”.

Albury mayor Kevin Mack and his Wodonga counterpart Anna Speedie were talking tough yesterday.

Cr Mack said energy costs were to blame and pool users needed to “get used to the environment because it’s here to stay”.

Cr Speedie said: “If you are a swim user, a heavy user of our pools then you need to contribute to the running and sustainability of them.”

A meeting is likely to be held next week to confirm boycott details.