Council's motives and transparency have once again come under fire after "a $36 million misrepresentation" was found between a Dilapidation Report and the Aquatic Facility Business Plan.
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On Tuesday night council voted to go ahead with a business plan to build a $67 million complex adjacent to the Sportsdome, moving to begin lobbying state and federal governments for the $57 million shortfall in funding.
Meanwhile, the Save The Pools committee, a sub-branch of the Ratepayers Association, have questioned why the 2017 Dilapidation Report was completely disregarded in the business plan.
The committee were promised a copy of the report from council late last year, although "after getting no response" had to instead submit a Freedom of Information request to obtain a copy.
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In that report, the committee found recommendations that for $450,000 and $700,000 respectively, council could "repair all identified issues and mitigate future failures" for a period of at least ten years at both City and Scully Park facilities.
However, the only option slated in the business plan was the total demolition and reconstruction of both facilities at a combined cost of $37 million.
STP committee spokesperson Stephen Maher said it is just one more example of council's "lack of transparency and lacklustre community engagement".
"The report makes no reference to structural defects, and only mentions 'minimal superficial repairs'," he said.
"There is a substantial difference between the information in the business plan and in the report."
In a statement on Wednesday, council defended their stance, saying the business plan took a "holistic view."
"The business case takes a holistic view and shows that we would need to spend significant money to upgrade the existing facilities," the spokesperson said.
"The dilapidation report is a structural assessment of the pool shell that only refers to repairs for superficial works required to bide a bit more time."
Ironically, "a bit more time" is exactly what the STP committee want.
It agrees with the need for a new facility, however disagrees that both existing and central facilities should close.
"We believe further and more thorough community engagement is needed," Mr Maher said.
"The report suggests that $1.15 million can extend the life of both pools for ten years - they are basic repairs that should have been done over the last ten years anyway, the management of the pools has been deplorable."
