A vision to turn AquaZone into a state-of-the-art facility with waterslides, a diving board and spa has been unveiled by Warrnambool City Council candidate Ben Blain.
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Mr Blain has even flagged the possibility of creating a whole new facility on a greenfields site to create a centre that was more suitable for hosting major swim meets.
He also suggested the council look at making the gym accessible 24 hours like other gyms in the city.
Mr Blain said AquaZone was a council facility that the city would outgrow in the future and he wanted to see the council prepare for what the next stage would be.
"We need to be thinking about the current AquaZone site and if it can be used for expansion or do we require an alternative location," he said.
"Should we be looking at it to be like a site for training, swim meets and also trying to really have it as more of a spa, medical recovery kind of centre," Mr Blain said.
"It would be exciting to have an aquatic centre that has an indoor Olympic pool and have enough room for spectators, so we can hold state swim meets.
"Saltwater pools to aid recovery from medical conditions and sports injuries would be a great addition."
With Warrnambool home to so many sporting clubs, Mr Blain said it was important to have an ice plunge pool that athletes could use for their game preparation and recovery.
"The diving board was another thing I wanted to bring back," he said.
"Do we want a facility that is like what they have in Belmont in Geelong that has got waterslides?
"It's just looking forward at what would we do next with it."
Mr Blain said the location of the facility left little room for major expansion and queried whether the council should be looking at another site.
"Because we have a population of 35,000, if you look at Bendigo they've got 13 pools that their council actually runs," he said.
"Why don't we make the gym at Aquazone 24 hours? It's only swipe cards. It would be easy enough to do.
"It can make it more commercially viable. Every pool every council runs, runs at a loss but the community benefits of it outweigh the cost.
"If we can make changes like this to make it more commercially viable that's a good thing because we're not hitting ratepayers as hard."
He said the new ideas could help make it an attraction to draw people in.
"I want it to be a state-of the art facility that not only caters for the competitive swimmers but to be also used to draw visitors to our city like actually having fun things for kids, like water slides."
"Tourists would come here to use it."
Mr Blain said the council needed to be looking at funding opportunities from the federal and state governments while getting the city's own budget in order so it was ready to fund its share of this facility.
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