Huge swimming pool to be auctioned with $1 reserve

Surplus to requirements, an 11m long swimming pool is going begging in a $1 reserve, online auction.

The pool has been used by the Liz Welie Swim School for the past six years, but with the school moving to Pyes Pa early next year, it has to go. The logic behind the $1 reserve is simple.

''It's a cost for me to get it out, so why not let somebody else do that,'' said swim school co-owner Greg Cummings.

''We've put it on for a dollar and I guess the market will decide what people are prepared to pay, knowing they have to remove it themselves.''

The pool was 11m long, 5m wide and varied in depth from 0.7m to 0.9m.

Mr Cummings said around 29,000 swimming lessons had taken place in the pool over the past six years.

As for where the fibre glass pool might end up, he was not sure.

''I have no idea at all,'' he said, but he doesn't think moving it will be too difficult a job, with the pool ideally suited to another similar warehouse-type location, or outdoors - as long as the space is there.

''The beauty of it is, it's sitting on a cradle. When we bought the business we were quite amazed by it.

''Someone has built this cradle, for want of a better term. It's the same kind of set up as your own bath in your own house. Someone has built a frame, put a pool in it and built a deck around it.

''Whoever the purchaser is, if they work in with the demolition group, they would just have to wait for the decking to be pulled down or removed, and they could back in with a truck, lift it onto the truck and be gone.''

The swim school's new premises at Pyes Pa was purpose built with two pools. Mr Cummings said the move is necessary to meet demand.

The online auction closes on October 28 at 11.05am. At the time of going to print, two bids had been received.

Trade Me communications adviser Logan Mudge said he cannot remember any other time an entire pool was for sale on the auction site.

"It's unusual but it's what our members tend to love. It brings to mind a time when a principal sold an entire playground on site," Mr Mudge said.

Unusual and interesting auctions like these usually got plenty of of views and debate.

"My biggest piece of advice to the seller is to get on board with the Q and A. It helps drive bids and interest if people know the owner is someone who is going to have a bit of fun and a laugh with them about the whacky item."