Moyne Shire councillors split on future of Port Fairy's Belfast Aquatics

The facility got an eleventh-hour reprieve on Monday when it was granted a one month extension to its insurance the day before its cover was due to expire.

Council chief executive Bill Millard was leading efforts to explore the available options for supporting the pool, and said the "best and easiest" path would be for Belfast Aquatics to find a new insurer.

If the centre can't find a new insurer, the only remaining path to keep it operating may be for the council to take it over.

At last week's council meeting Cr Damian Gleeson said council should take "whatever actions are required" to ensure Belfast Aquatics continued operating.

Cr James Purcell said council was going through a "two stage" process.

"The first step is council working with the Belfast committee to see whether they can find an insurer.

"If that works, great, and if it doesn't there will need to be a discussion with the committee about how they wish to proceed," he said.

Cr Purcell said he would like to see the pool stay in the committee's hands, but he said council would "do whatever is necessary to make sure Belfast keeps operating".

Cr Jim Doukas said he didn't like the sound of doing "whatever it takes".

"It's all very well for them to say that, but at what cost?" Cr Doukas said.

"The aim is to keep the pool running, but you can't throw good money after bad."

Cr Doukas said if the centre couldn't find a new insurer council would have to factor in a number of considerations to weigh up whether to take over.

"We really need to see all the figures on what it will cost to get the pool to an acceptable standard. And that doesn't mean a patch up job, that means not needing major repairs for a good decade," he said.

"We would have to go through it item by item and we would have to weigh it up against the number of people who use the pool."

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Cr Doukas said council already gave the facility $150,000 a year to keep the doors open, as well as additional sums for urgent capital works, but taking over the centre would be a substantial weight on the shire's budget.

"We've accepted the $150,000, but does that become $300, $350, $400,000?

"There's got to be a limit," he said.

Cr Karen Foster said it would be a "tragedy" for Belfast Aquatics to close, but didn't say council should do whatever it takes to save it.

"I would say whatever we can do, we should do," she said.

"So much community blood sweat and tears have gone into that facility."

Crs Jordan Lockett, Daniel Meade and mayor Ian Smith declined to say how far council should go to save the centre.

Cr Smith said he was wary of staking out a position he would have to retract later. Cr Lockett said he didn't want to prejudice any forthcoming discussion.

Cr Damian Gleeson also declined to add to his comments from the council meeting.

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