Portarlington swimming pool closes its doors once again

THE Portarlington swimming pool has officially shut its doors for good, again.

Businesswoman Kylee Clasper, who signed a commercial lease agreement in March last year, confirmed on Monday that Splash Swim School Australia was closed until further notice.

“The signs went up last night (Sunday), we are saying ‘sorry but we are closing until further notice’,” Ms Clasper said.

“We tried our best but it hasn’t worked out.”

Ms Clasper blamed a lack of communication with former owners Tom Montalto and Rose Portella in regards to occupational health and safety issues at the pool, located in Smythe Street.

“We had OH&S come in and said we needed a few things fixed in regards to structural problems,” she said.

“I’ve been trying to contact the owners since last November.”

But Ms Portella, who is presently overseas, said works had been carried out at the pool in compliance with requests from the City of Greater Geelong and Worksafe, and were continuing at the moment.

“But due to restricted access to the pool I believe a couple of items still need to be addressed,” Ms Portella said.

“I myself employed a private contractor to complete these works before my departure overseas and am working cohesively with Worksafe, City of Greater Geelong and my private contractor.

“All these works have been supported financially by my father Tom.”

Portarlington Business Development Association (PBDA) president John Rae said the closure was very disappointing for the local community, as it was a valuable asset in assisting with health, educating people to swim and having fun.

“The community led by Joy Porter fought successfully to reopen the pool and it has remained open for the past 18 months.”

The PBDA met on Tuesday night to discuss the situation, gather the reasons of why this occurred and what could be done moving forward.

Back in October 2015, the then owners gave notice to staff that the pool would permanently close on December 19, 2015.

This prompted a petition in November 2015 that contained more than 1,250 signatures calling on the City of Greater Geelong to work harder to secure the future of the pool. The owner of the pool then offered the Portarlington Community Association a lease for $1 a year for five years in a bid to keep the asset open.

Following this, a working committee group met in December to discuss how the Portarlington community could save its pool.

In March 2016, the Portarlington community celebrated after hearing news that Ms Clasper had saved its much-loved swimming pool, which reopened within weeks.