A petition to push for an indoor swimming pool at Beechworth has garnered more than 300 signatures in a month.
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Stanley businesswoman Maggie Mackenzie said the community "desperately needs" a year-round pool to save youngsters' lives by teaching them to swim and improve the wellbeing of elderly people.
Indigo Shire has five outdoor pools, in Beechworth, Rutherglen, Yackandandah, Chiltern and Tangambalanga.
Mrs Mackenzie said the closest option for Beechworth people seeking a public, year-round pool, was to travel to the Wangaratta Sports and Aquatic Centre or the Wodonga Sports and Leisure Centre.
Her petition, established on April 8 via change.org which uses a QR code to share the document, had gathered 312 signatures at 11am on Wednesday, May 8.
Mrs Mackenzie said she wanted to alert Indigo Shire Council and the community to statistics from the Royal Life Saving Society and the Australian Water Safety Council which painted a grim picture.
"Drowning is one of the leading causes of unintentional injury death in Australia with 276 people losing their lives in water-related incidents last year alone," Mrs Mackenzie said in her petition.
"The AWSC also highlights that formal swimming lessons can reduce the risk of drowning among children aged one to four years by 88 per cent."
Life Saving Australia figures showed summer drowning deaths in Victoria rose from 19 in an average from 2018-2019 to 27 in the summer of 2023-2024.
"People drowning has become a critical issue," Mrs Mackenzie told The Border Mail. "A lot of those drownings have involved people who are new to Australia, and they're not used to our oceans. Why shouldn't they have easier access to be able to learn to swim?"
In April, Wangaratta's first Culturally and Linguistically Diverse swimming program was launched.
Mrs Mackenzie said she believed an indoor pool at Beechworth would boost the local economy.
"People will come to the pool from all around, they'll come up to bring their children to swim," she said. "Then they'll go to a cafe to have a coffee afterwards or have lunch, do a bit of shopping while they're here."
She said the benefits of an indoor pool went beyond just teaching young people to swim.
"An indoor pool could be used to kids learn basic swimming skills year round but also provide exercise classes for people who have had surgery or older people who currently have to get on a bus to Wangaratta in the colder months," she said.
"I often hear people say their surgeon has advised them to do some aquatic therapy, and they say, yes, but I have to drive to Wangaratta, it's just not practical.
"I think two or three years ago they spent thousands to repair the existing pool - it's old - and they're about to spend more in this budget to repair it again."
Indigo Shire Council has allocated $160,000 in the 2023-24 budget to reline the existing Beechworth pool.
The council said there were no funds in the 2024-2025 budget for an indoor pool project.
"The Beechworth Pool Feasibility Study conducted in 2021 showed the indicative capital investment required for an indoor pool would be $14.5 million," a spokesperson said.
"While we understand the community desire for an indoor facility, appropriate grant funding needs to be sourced to support such a project."
Mrs Mackenzie said she hopes to lodge questions to be read out at the next Indigo Shire Council meeting on May 14, with a view to ask whether the council was aware of large community support for an indoor pool project.
In 2015 a lobby group pushed for a regional aquatic centre in Albury with a 50-metre indoor pool with initial cost estimates of about $40 million.
Last September, Albury Council voted unanimously to make the Albury swimming complex open all-year round.
