Mail - Lilydale Star Mail - 31st October 2023

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Tuesday, 31 October, 2023

Lilydale

Mail

Lilydale respiratory clinic reaches the end

Lions Park gets a make over

Shane Kelton shares vulnerability in new book

Real Estate liftout inside

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PROPERTY PAGE 19 GUIDE

A Star News Group Publication

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Pool closes down By Mikayla van Loon Kilsyth residents have been left “shattered” and “terribly disappointed” after a decision to close the beloved but dilapidated Centenary Pool permanently. Yarra Ranges Councillors voted to decommission the pool at the Tuesday 24 October meeting which was met with an outcry of anger from residents and pool users in the gallery. The Hawthory Road pool, known for its inflated dome, has been closed since March after an assessment of the structure found it to be unsafe and at risk of collapse. Over the seven months of closure, it has forced regular users of the pool to relocate, including the Lilydale Swim Club whose home base was the Kilsyth pool. Club president Andrew Lynch said “it has affected us” in terms of membership, access to lanes and keeping a high standard of training for its swimmers. “We were running at about 75 members when we had Kilsyth pool and now we’re down to about 45. We’ve managed to find different homes and different pools we can use to swim. I guess the proximity of those pools relative to what people had originally has really been affected,” he said. “So going from 75 members down to 45, obviously, affects us financially and puts a strain on the club in that way.” Mr Lynch said some of the club’s state and high achieving swimmers weren’t getting the appropriate lane time to cater to their standard of swimming.

The home of the Lilydale Swim Club, learn to swim and aqua aerobics at Kilsyth Centenary Pool will be closed permanently leaving the community ‘devastated’. Picture: YARRA RANGES COUNCIL “We were able to meet most of the demands from the swimmers by utilising the Boronia pool and the Yarra Centre, even hiring some lanes at a private pool to try to fulfil all those time schedules that we had originally because we were swimming six mornings and four nights a week so to fill all those time slots in other pools was pretty hard.” For the Kilsyth aqua aerobics group, which

has a membership of 58 women, it has left them “absolutely shattered” to hear of the decision. Montrose resident and user of the pool for 20 years, Chris Dowling, said she is grateful to Councillor Andrew Fullagar for putting forward the alternate recommendation to keep the land as open space but is somewhat baffled by the decision still, knowing what a great

loss it will be. “Once open spaces are gone, they’re gone and Kilsyth is full of housing, there’s not a single block left,” she said. “We all knew about the problems with the Kilsyth Centenary Pool but I just wonder how long it’s been on the council’s mind to build a Lilydale pool.” Continued page 3

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