MidCoast Council will got 'back to the drawing board' in its bid to secure new management for four of its public swimming pools.
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The YMCA, which has had a long association managing the pools, announced earlier this year it had reached a decision not to go ahead with another tender.
The YMCA had been managing Great Lakes Aquatic Centre, Forster since it opened in 1991 and Manning Aquatic Leisure Centre since 2012.
After council called for new tenders in late February, only two of the initial four submitted a response.
Tenderers were asked to provide a price for the both the Taree and Forster sites combined and for Wingham Memorial Swimming Pool and Tea Gardens Pool separately.
Both tenders failed to meet all the requirements of the tender as written.
However, the departures are not considered to be of such an extent that council will not be able to reach an acceptable agreed position with the tenderers, pool supervisor, Alan Anderson reported to councillors before the start of yesterday's April monthly ordinary meeting.
The tender evaluation committee recommends that no tenders be accepted, and that council resolve to undertake negotiations with the tenderers, Mr Anderson said.
Mr Anderson said as part of the process the new operator would honour any prepaid memberships or Learn-To-Swim lessons.
He said a factor behind the Y's decision to pull out of Tea Gardens and Wingham pools was its preference to manage pools with additional services, such as gyms, classes and indoor pools
"This has resulted in the contract costs for the Tea Gardens and Wingham pools increasing and the level of service in terms of learn to swim, swim squads and aqua classes diminishing," he said.
Councillors agreed with his recommendation to offer management of these two smaller sites to private operators, small operators or community groups, which he said had the potential to provide reduced management feed and provide an improved level of service and customised approach to meeting the unique requirements of each community.
What this does is rejects everything that currently has been received and opens the opportunity for the management of pools to be open from private operators, community groups and small operators.
- Katheryn Stinson
He said entry fees for the 2024-25 swimming season would be set by the new operators.
Dheera Smith said it was interesting the Wingham community had expressed an interest in managing the pool.
"I believe Tea Gardens also has been very active with their swimming needs down there and they're ready to go," Cr Smith said.
"The fact that they have had to go back to the beginning of when it was built is exciting." she said.
"What this does is rejects everything that currently has been received and opens the opportunity for the management of pools to be open from private operators, community groups and small operators," Katheryn Stinson said.
"It doesn't concrete anything in; all this report and motion does is call for tenders for those two swimming pools as well and for the general manager to undertake those negotiations."