Mountain Views
Mail Covering the foothills of the Yarra Ranges & Murrindindi Shires
5 Tuesday, 19 May, 2015
Swinburne talks begin
8-9
A Mail News Group publication
Budgets handed down
25-27
Sports of all sorts
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■ Councillors ‘swim in right direction’ voting to keep indoor pool open for five years...
Lifeline for pool By JESSE GRAHAM
From left, Fiona McAllister, George Perini and Helen Campbell-Drury.139022_01
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HEALESVILLE’S Indoor Pool was thrown a $200,000 lifeline at last week’s Yarra Ranges Council meeting, with councillors voting unanimously to keep the pool open for the next five years. A proposal was on the table at the meeting to fund the Jack Hort Memorial Indoor Pool in Healesville to the tune of $40,000 per annum for the coming five years, which would address the pool’s operating deficit. Support Healesville Indoor Pool (SHIP) member Helen Campbell-Drury made a passionate speech to the councillors, urging them to support the pool’s funding. Ms Campbell-Drury said the pool was a “vital asset” for the town, and urged councillors to “swim in the right direction” on the funding. And swim they did - the motion to fund the pool went ahead unopposed. Ms Campbell-Drury said that SHIP would now focus on fund-raising, organising shower screens in the women’s change rooms and changing cubicles. Ryrie Ward councillor Fiona McAllister said the decision would give the community certainty that the pool was staying open for business. “It gives certainty and that’s something everyone’s needed for quite some time,” Cr McAllister said. “Now, we can look at working to market it better and get more people there.” Issues around the pool’s deficit were raised 16 months ago, when manager Ross Ilsley told the Mail that without urgent financial assistance the pool would close in 2015. The indoor pool is based on Education Department land and run by the Healesville High School, but the school receives no additional funding for the pool from the department, meaning money for the deficit would have to come out of educational programs. In the midst of uncertainty about whether the council would fund the deficit at the pool last year, principal George Perini put his foot down and ruled out using school money to bail out the pool. Continued Page 3.