Aligned Leisure chief executive Shane Dunne made the “nothing is off the table” comment during a presentation to Albury Council on Monday night which went for more than an hour and also revealed plant and equipment at the Albury and Lavington pools were not compliant and had subsequently undergone recent repairs to meet industry standards.

Previous Albury and Lavington pool managers didn’t charge lane hire fees even though Aligned Leisure assumed they had when drafting up its successful bid for the management rights.

“We actually thought we were providing a discount to this side of the border based on the fees that we saw were available,” Mr Dunne said.

“From now nothing is off the table and we’ve got all the way through to June to sit down with clubs and figure out a solution based on everything, not just lane hire fees.

“The last thing I want to be doing is walking in here with a large contract, sticking it on the desk and saying ‘bad luck, we snuck it in somewhere, deal with it’.

“We want to be working with you to come up with a solution.”

Cr Henk van de Ven described the lane hire fees as the “boogeyman” in the pools controversy and queried how much income had been derived from lane hire by previous managers.

Albury’s recreational facilities team leader Michael Stanton confirmed there were no figures available and monthly reports received by council only detailed income received from casual visits and memberships.

“The previous contract was significantly different to the current one,” he said.

“There wasn’t as much responsibility put on the contractor in terms of what they paid for and what they were responsible for.”

Cr Darren Cameron revealed the fees and charges Aligned Leisure planned to impose were not available to councillors at its April meeting when the contract was unanimously awarded and trumpeted as a victory for the Two Cities, One Community initiative.

Cr Cameron said it was his belief most councils in NSW don’t charge lane hire fees to regular users.

“There is a reason for that in that they drop off in usage and end up ruining the income stream,” he said.

“But those that do tend to not charge them a club membership per se.”

Cr David Thurley raised concerns at the revelation plant equipment didn’t meet required standards.

“I’m a little surprised we had non-complying equipment or dosing systems,” he said.