Since around 2010, England alone has seen hundreds of swimming pool closures – estimates suggest almost 400 fewer pools in the decade following austerity-era funding cuts and rising costs. Pools have continued to close or face closure for multiple reasons, including operating deficits, ageing infrastructure, and constrained local government finances. Read more
Once the underlying business model for operating public swimming pools is examined (specifically, the factors that drive demand and those that drive costs), it becomes apparent that the prevailing service model is structurally challenged over the long term. Demand Drivers Demand for public pools is largely shaped by external and Read more
Where income from pool entry fees represents a relatively small recovery of total costs, councils may consider waiving entry fees as part of a broader service review. The immediate financial effect of this approach is that the costs of delivering the pool are spread across a larger number of participants, Read more
Introduction The State of Aquatic Facility Infrastructure in Australia Report, commissioned by the Royal Life Saving Australia (RLSA) in 2022, found that 500 pools across Australia would need replacing, or require “significant repairs” to the pool shell, within the next 10 years – at a cost of $8 billion. It Read more
Million-Dollar Finance Systems or Fleet Spreadsheets? Local governments invest heavily in corporate finance systems—often running into the millions—to ensure financial integrity, auditability and compliance. These systems are designed to be the single source of truth for asset valuation, cost attribution, depreciation, and capital planning. Yet when it comes to fleet Read more
Introduction For ever and a day, council professionals have been responsible for service design and setting service standards. For services such as roads, water and drainage this continues to make sense because of the required technical input and minimum standards associated with delivery of some services. The risk associated with Read more
Increasingly the community voiced that it was no longer prepared to pay more for council services. A few years back we reached the tipping point where the community was making it clear it would consider reduction in levels of service rather than introduction of fees and charges or increases in Read more