The announcement comes just before the Ballarat Aquatic Centre’s new $13.5 million 50-metre pool is opened on Saturday.

Prominent swimming coach Morgan Murphy, who has been a Ballarat Swimming Club head coach for decades, was told by the YMCA the organisation would no longer run the club’s morning swim training squad. 

At the moment, the swim school’s 40 squad training participants pay a reduced fortnightly membership to use the centre’s pool, but this will end when the YMCA stops running the squad program from Thursday morning.

Mr Murphy feared the costs would spell the end of the longstanding Ballarat Swimming Club.

Mr Murphy said new regulations meant the swimming club must pay a fee of about $30 an hour, per lane.

But as the club would need three lanes in the 50-metre pool for six sessions a week, Mr Murphy said the profit pumped back into the centre with the new fees would soar to more than $48,000 a year.

“The weekly costs to hire the lanes would be more than a thousand dollars a week,” he said.

“Parents do expect to pay more for the facility, but I am extremely concerned and worried these costs will simply be too expensive for some.” He said previously the club’s costs had been about $27,000 a year, with $14,000 taken for coaches’ wages, which left the centre with a profit of $13,000 a year.

In his fight to keep the swimming club operational, Mr Murphy has researched fees for pool lane hire in regional cities across the state.

He said he remained perplexed as to why the lane hire would be so expensive in Ballarat compared to similar programs in other cities, such as the Geelong Swimming Club which use the Waurn Ponds Pool at a rate of $10.50 an hour, per lane, for six sessions a week.

He said members also paid a reduced rate membership at the centre.

Mr Murphy said similar models were mirrored in Bendigo, with the Bendigo Hawks Swimming Club using the 50-metre pool at the Peter Krenz Leisure Centre at a discounted rate of $7 a week for every swimmer. No lane hire fees are charged at the Peter Krenz Leisure Centre. 

Mr Murphy said the swimming squad had been the most successful swimmer development program in Ballarat for decades.

Mr Murphy said the club had been based at the centre since it opened in 1994 and had no alternative pool for the future. Ballarat YMCA chief executive Colin Hunt said while the YMCA was “very supportive” of the program continuing, it made the decision to discontinue the provision of the squad as a Ballarat Aquatic Learning Centre program.

“We believe that swimming clubs and sporting groups should all have equal opportunity to access a first-class centre that provides state-of-the-art training and racing faculties,” Mr Hunt said.

He said that for this reason, it was decided the program should be delivered directly by the club in the future.

“Rather than being the home of a swimming club, the centre is striving to become the home of swimming,” Mr Hunt said. 

Mr Hunt said the cost to hire a lane in the 50-metre pool would be among the lowest in the state. 

“YMCA has reviewed other aquatic facilities to ensure accurate benchmarking,” Mr Hunt said. 

He said it was mandatory  the City of Ballarat approved all BALC fees and charges.

Mr Hunt said a meeting to discuss the final hire fees was being held by the City of Ballarat on Wednesday evening.

melissa.cunningham@fairfaxmedia.com.au