Unbuilding era 2: “Just an unintended consequence”, professionalisation

In rural Victoria, Save Our Pool protests have often involved plans to close Olympic-style pools largely built, funded and operated by volunteer committees. The Harcourt, Chewton, Campbells Creek and Newstead pools; and Rochester, Elmore, Lockington, and Colbinabbin pools were all volunteer-run through the 1960s to the 1990s or later. While other states have some volunteer pools, Victoria seems unusual for their prevalence. That these pools and their histories seem so quaint says something about how much pools and community infrastructure have changed.

Most small Victorian towns had pre-Olympic pools in the early 20th century. Upgrades in post-war decades came through local campaigning – sometimes voluntarily, and sometimes compelled by new health legislation. Arms-length relationships between shires and volunteers reflected a valorisation of gendered self-help in rural areas, where infrastructure sometimes had cooperative origins. Volunteer swimming associations were also key to promoting early swimming safety and education. Volunteering continued in Australian surf lifesaving clubs, and rural public pools through most of the 20th century. Writing in 1990 to a new pool committee member who asked for more than the usual small grant, a clerk reminded them (passive aggressively) that:

“…We are most fortunate to have community minded people who are willing to give their time voluntarily to maintaining recreation facilities throughout the Shire. This form of self-help is recognised by the Shire and greatly appreciated as a major contribution toward providing these facilities and encouraging local participation.”

Until the 1990s, pools in urban areas were typically staffed by on-site contractors: at Preston, management came with a ‘cottage’ next door. In rural areas, Olympic-style pools were run by volunteer committees, who either employed seasonal supervisors, or had membership-based access. Pressures on these older and civic models from professional aquatics operators built slowly from the 1980s and ramped up in the 2000s. Archives show tensions between rural shires, metropolitan councils, and a new peak group – the Australian Institute of Swimming and Recreation Centre Management – who lobbied to require professional qualifications for pool operators. In the early 1980s, Ararat, Avoca, and Waranga shires voiced fears volunteer pools were safely operated but would be unable to find or pay for professional staff:

“The serious consequences of the closing of rural pools are that swimmers will use rivers, channels and other areas with greater risk of drowning and disease. In addition, the number of children learning to swim will decrease – further increasing the risks just mentioned.”

Further change came in 1991 with the Guidelines for Safer Pool Operation (GSPO), setting industry standards including for professional supervision. Reflecting the Municipal Association of Victoria’s attempts to mediate the effects on rural pools, the GSPO as introduced in 1991 applied separate guidelines to “low-patronage pools”. Correspondence shows back and forth about whether these went too far, or not far enough. Pointedly, from a shire anticipating legal implications:

“Council does not believe that they are realistic and achievable operational standards for their small voluntary management systems and would be concerned that having the guidelines in place puts management in a greater public liability risk situation than would be the case without the guidelines. That is, once the guidelines have been accepted as the standard, then they must be complied with in defence of any liability action. Council finds the whole issue very disappointing as an indictment on our society.”

Over the 1990s and 2000s, some volunteer pool committees accommodated changing expectations, on top of normal turnover. Others burnt out. Depending on land ownership, formerly volunteer pools were tendered by councils to aquatics companies, and not infrequently proposed for demolition a few years later. Subsequent Save Our Pool campaigns have uneven outcomes, especially as pool committees increasingly need postgraduate or corporate backgrounds to navigate compliance:

“There’s lots more to running a pool. It’s like a medium sized business.”

“Now the hallmark of this show is professional expertise.”

By 2000, the Guidelines were adjusted to require paid lifeguards at low-patronage pools – reported as a novelty in places like Elmore. There were significant revisions in 2018 in response to a fatal drowning in 2014 at Greensborough WaterMarc: a “brand spanking new”, “packed” metropolitan aquatic centre, which had 13 lifeguards on duty and exceeded ratios at the time. A Coronial Inquiry resulted in the 2018 Code of Practice for Safer Public Pools (Vic). Low-patronage pool provisions were removed. One former volunteer described the cumulative effects of compliance that “upped the ante” as “heartbreaking”, but characterised them as an unintentional outcome:

“In a lot of the policy stuff, the Local Government Act, the stopping the section 86, the pressure on finance, the professionalizing of council, all that sort of stuff: I think the community groups getting kicked out of running pools is just an unintended consequence.”