Councillors double down on pool naming

TIM HOWARD

Clarence Valley councillors have ignored community consultation to arrive at the name for the swimming pool complex due to open in Grafton next month –twice.

The newly elected council doubled down on calling the centre the Clarence Regional Aquatic Centre at its frst ordinary meeting on October 22 and then at an extraordinary meeting to revisit the decision a week later.

The council consulted the public about a name for the complex and the majority of responses favoured including the word “memorial” in the name.

The word would have been an acknowledgement of the history of the Grafton Olympic Pool, which occupied the site from 1956 to 2022 and which was built in response to the tragic drowning of 13 Cub Scouts in the Clarence River at Grafton in 1943.

Deputy mayor Greg Clancy was disappointed with the frst decision of the council to name the pool complex without the including some reference to the tragedy and called the meeting, hoping for a change of mind from enough councillors to overturn it.

The original decision to name the centre did reference the drowning tragedy, with the indoor pool facility to be name the Grafton Cub Scout Memorial Indoor Pool.

Council met at 8.30am on October 25 to decide on an amendment to resolution passed at the council meeting three days earlier to bump out the name of the complex to the Clarence Region Memorial Aquatic Centre.

Cr Clancy had a seconder in Cr Lynne Cairns.

He said the decision to only name part of the facility in recognition of the scouts was not enough.

“The fact that one of the pools will recognise that doesn’t really address the concerns of the family and of the historical society,” Cr

Clancy said.

“There was a lot of support for the name Grafton Memorial Pool, and I think because of the concerns of the staff in terms of having the name Clarence regional, I think we’ve gone with that, and I think that’s a reasonable compromise, rather than Grafton.

“And I just think we need to listen to the community.”

He said the president of the Clarence River Historical Society, Steve Tranter, had contacted him and provided information about the opening of he original pool in 1956 when 3000 people attended the ceremony.

He said the speeches that day made if clear the pool was a memorial to those boys who drowned and that idea had become etched into Grafton’s history, even though the original pool did not contain the word memorial.

Cr Clancy said that was born out in the fgures the council gathered from its community consultation.

He said of the 106 suggestions for the pool naming there were Grafton Memorial Pool 19. Grafton Memorial Aquatic Centre, 14, Grafton Olympic pool six, Clarence Regional Aquatic Centre one. Others 66.

Cr Clancy was also concerned people, like a cousin of one of the boys who drowned, Barbara Wilkes, were not considered.

“She didn’t have the means to participate in the survey. She did ring council,” he said.

“She said, Is there anything more that can be done to have the word memorial in the main title?”

Cr Cristie Yager supported Cr Clancy’s address, even though Clarence Regional Memorial Aquatic Centre would be a “mouthful”.

Her view was the pool naming would be purely for ceremony and people would likely come up with their own names for the place once it was operational.

“I am going to be in full support of adding the word memorial to Clarence Regional Aquatic Centre, and I think that that addresses that key word that everyone in the community wanted,” Cr Yager said.

But six councillors thought differently. None spoke against Cr Clancy’s motion, but they voted the motion down without further debate.

After the meeting Cr Clancy said he was disappointed he couldn’t get some councillors to change their minds.

“The issue for me is we’ve ignored the wishes of the community, that’s the big thing,” Cr Clancy said.

Mr Tranter said the historical society would have preferred for the word “memorial” to be in the centre’s name.

“For the sake of eight letters, they could have recognised the boys who drowned, the boys who survived, their families, the rescuers, the volunteers who were there,” he said.

He said the society had access to information not in the public domain and made this available to the council, but it was not in the report presented to councillors.”

In the Council Corner segment on Loving Life FM last Friday Cr Alison Whaites, the mover of the motion Cr Clancy sought to amend, defended the vote.

She said the word “memorial” had never been used in the pool name to and have it included in the name of the indoor pool part of the complex, where learn to swim would be conducted, was a “huge step forward.”

She said it would be confusing for the public if the word was used in the name for the centre as well as the indoor pool.

She said the historical society had an opportunity to inform the council of it concerns but to her knowledge that had not happened.