Raetihi's swimming pools are well used and improvements to them are a top priority for residents. Photo / File
Raetihi's swimming pools are well used and improvements to them are a top priority for residents. Photo / File
Yet another report will be written and more consultation done before there is any improvement to the swimming pools in Raetihi and Ohakune.
Waiouru-Waimarino Community Board member John Chapman and Raetihi Promotions treasurer Donna Journeaux said it was frustrating but Raetihi Community Charitable Trust chairwoman Rachel Hoskin is not disappointedand says she can work with it.
The matter was raised at the community board's October 7 meeting, with a presentation from Raetihi Community Charitable Trust secretary Helen Cussins.
She said pool improvements are a top priority for the town. The pools are leaking, they are well used in summer and new people in town are pushing for more facilities.
Raetihi's two community groups will work together in a Pools Group to progress the improvements. She asked Ruapehu District Council to pay a consultant to decide what improvements are needed, how much they will cost and how the work could be done in stages.
When that's known the Pools Group will find the funding - a win/win solution, she said.
Waiouru-Waimarino Community Board member John Chapman wants faster action on the Raetihi Pools. Photo / supplied
However, the council has commissioned recreation, sport and leisure consultancy RSL to write a second report, on both Raetihi and Ohakune pools, the council's community and economic development executive manager Pauline Welch said.
It will give costs and talk about how improvements can be staged, with the information available in early February.
Ruapehu councillor Elijah Pue asked that the Pools Group be involved in those next steps.
To Chapman, the council's response is Just another example of "kicking the can down the road" rather than taking action. He questioned whether another report was needed, and Welch said it was important to pull all the information together.
"I was astonished that my board didn't support the community proposal. The council, of course, now owns it," Chapman said.
The further report means action will be delayed, and Journeaux shares Chapman's fear that when the needs of the two pools are considered together Ohakune will get hot pools for tourists and the Raetihi improvements will be lower grade.
"Let us do it ourselves. Why does Ohakune have to come into it? Anything is just years and years away," she said.
But Hoskin, who raises funds professionally, is unfazed. If the council pays for a scoping study and gets costings the community will raise the money, she said. The amount could be as much as $1 million to $1.5 million and she believes success is likely.
Some of the money could come out of the $1 million the council budgeted for Raetihi's revitalisation, she said, and her trust raised $300,000 for improvements to Raetihi Park.
"We can go for funding. It's much harder for the council to do that," she said.
