Editorial: Mount pools a city shame

Whichever way you look at it, the Mount Hot Pools are an embarrassment to this city.

The fact that a group of residents is actively campaigning to prevent the redevelopment of this popular tourist attraction is bad enough.

Tauranga has struggled to keep up with its massive population growth and its infrastructure and facilities are nowhere near the same levels as cities of similar sizes.

Groups such as the Mount Hot Pools Protection Society only continue to stall progress in our ever-growing city.

Now, as the pools have reopened after a 16-week closure, this situation only seems worse.

The pools needed urgent attention after regular users noticed a drop in temperature - leading to a 50,000-litre a day leak being discovered.

While the leak has apparently been fixed - at a cost of up to $1.5 million - the complaints keep flooding in.

Customers told the Bay of Plenty Times this week that water temperatures were still not warm enough, one of the spa pools had been covered over, a shade cloth was missing and the showers were cold.

Other complaints include slimy toilets and main pool nozzles being replaced with low-pressure fittings "angled such that you have to be a contortionist to use them".

The man who spent two years monitoring the temperature of the pools still has a list of complaints.

Even more embarrassingly, a member of the Fijian World Cup rugby team, which visited there on Sunday, said the pools were not as hot as expected.

Our own mayor has admitted the facility is not up to scratch.

Yes, the four-month closure was to fix the temperature problems, but now that council has stopped all spending on the proposed major redevelopment of the pools surely they could have utilised the hiatus to give the complex a much-needed spruce up.

For users to come back with more complaints than before is simply not good enough.

The council's response to the complaints and other questions asked by this newspaper, was to gloss over the real issues.

The pools should never have been reopened below standard and especially not when we have an influx of Rugby World Cup visitors.

As long as this city continues to present inferior amenities, we will lose tourists - and their money - to cities like Rotorua who know how to look after them.