Albury councillor Darren Cameron on Lauren Jackson stadium pool plan

Darren Cameron was speaking at Monday night's council meeting, October 23, where the council voted to set aside $1.5 million for design and costing of one of four options presented in a feasibility study.

It involves an aquatics centre, gym and three-court stadium, incorporating the PCYC, being built at the sports centre in East Albury.

With an estimated construction cost of $151 million it was the most expensive option, but was forecast to attract 717,204 visitors annually.

Cr Cameron was the only one of eight councillors in attendance to vote against the motion for the project which also included a clause supporting the replacement of Lavington Swim Centre, excluding the diving infrastructure.

He said there was no guarantee of state and federal funding assistance for the East Albury proposal.

"It has recurrent running costs in the millions, the price of electricity alone, the price of power, the price of water, the cost of labour - incredible," Cr Cameron said.

"This will bankrupt our city and it will leave a legacy of debt to our city forever and we need to be honest with the aquatics community and stop giving them the impression that we're going to wind the clock back and give them their dream outcome of a world-class, FINA-standard indoor aquatics centre."

Councillor Stuart Baker said what was proposed was not a FINA-level proposal and for the past seven years there had no movement on aquatics centre improvements and providing a suitable all-year round swimming centre.

"It will only ever get up if there's enough grants, buy-ins from state and federal money, private/allied health partnerships and we owe it to our community to provide them with some leadership and a vision to get something that most communities our size have already," Cr Baker said.

In reply, Cr Cameron said the best case scenario for Albury ratepayers was an outlay of $40 million and minimum recurrent upkeep costs of $1.5 to $2 million.

He suggested the "folly" could result in municipal staff pushing for a special rate variation to fund costs.

"This is also signing effectively the death warrant, in the long term, of the Lavington and Albury pools," Cr Cameron said.

"There is no way a community of this size without assistance from Wodonga, without assistance from our surrounding councils, could maintain that level of facility and also maintain the Albury and Lavington pools."

Mayor Kylie King cast the master plan as "quite aspirational" and said "there's no guarantees we'll have funding partners, funding opportunities to realise the entire vision".

"In the meantime...I don't want to see the standard of Lavington Swim Centre not offer what we might need," Cr King said.

The council's business and lifestyle leader Ambrose Glass replied that it was expected there would be a "modernising" of pools at Lavington and the inclusion of a splash park.

In relation to the Lauren Jackson plan, he said "yes it's a big number" but other councils had similar proposals, citing Cardinia Council on the south-eastern edge of Melbourne which is seeking $114 million for an upgrade of its aquatic centre at Pakenham.

When the motion was passed on Monday night it was meet with applause from the gallery which was filled with swimmers and water polo players.

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