Concept plans look ahead at future of Brown Hill pool

In a special edition of its newsletter, the association revealed concept plans for what it hopes to see for the future of the precinct.

The preliminary plans include a splash park, skate park and a permanent stage as features to potentially reinvigorate the reserve to serve Brown Hill's growing population.

Brown Hill Progress Association vice-president Bernie Brisbane said the idea was borne from thinking about the future of the pool, but spread to the reserve as a whole.

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"The pool's at a stage where it's getting fairly old. It's 80 years old, the maximum is 50 years for a pool so we've decided we'll look at the pool," he said.

"The ideas we've put in aren't specific, we've just put something in our special newsletter to give people ideas and then they can say yay or nay or they can have their own ideas what we should have. That's what it's all about."

Mr Brisbane said while the association would prefer the pool to remain open, the plans were somewhat of a contingency.

"You would have to have something to replace it. Most places have water parks now, that was a suggestion. Later on, maybe, we could have a pool come back," he said.

"Whether it's kept and just covered over for the time being and put a water feature park in like we've suggested, it's up to the community.

"We've got good feedback so far from our newsletter, so from that, hopefully something will come of it but it won't happen overnight, of course. This will be gradual and we'll do it in stages."

Control of the pool was handed back to the City of Ballarat in 2020 after being run by the association for 16 years in an effort to prevent its closure.

Last summer, the pool opened sporadically due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and a 'lack of supply in resourcing'.

City of Ballarat director of development and growth Natalie Robertson council had no formal plans for the reserve, but was engaging in open discussions with the association and the community regarding the future of the precinct.

"The pool came back to us a couple of years ago after the Brown Hill Progress Association handed it over and we did an audit of the pool and we know that it's got some issues in terms of maintenance requirements and some defects," she said.

"We know that we're capable of keeping the pool going for a couple of years and the intention is to do that, to keep the pool in shape so that we can use it for the next couple years so that we can really do some quality engagement with the community and find out from them what they want from the area."

Ms Robertson said a combination of outdoor pools, splash parks and aquatic centres throughout Ballarat was ideal because they were all utilised strongly by different demographics.

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