London, Ont.’s Thames Park Pool faces decommission amid community concerns

by arslan_ahmed | July 27, 2023 2:49 pm

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The Thames Park Pool in London, Ontario, will be discontinued after a narrow final vote in London city council. The decision disregards a community organization’s interests in salvaging the pool.

According to CBC News[2], the eight-seven decision, reflecting those in favour of decommissioning to those who were not, came while members of the Old South Community Organization (OSCO) wrote to the council before the vote to approve costly repairs to the pool. These were to be paid by the organization through private funds from an undeclared source.

The report further explains that earlier, the pool was supposed to be decommissioned in spring this year—based on findings of a staff report recommending against a rebuild given the unsafe location of the site of the pool. However, community support for the popular public spot put the closure at a halt, while pool staff conducted further repair assessments.

The staff review revealed the updated results two weeks ago, stating the pool has suffered even more damage since the initial scheduled closure. According to another report by Global News[3], this has considerably increased the initial repair estimates from between $300,000 and $600,000 to $1.92 million and $2.23 million.

According to the CBC News report, deputy mayor Shawn Lewis decided to bring decommissioning back as an option, given the inflated costs of the repairs and concerns of it not lasting a single winter.

The president of OSCO spoke to CBC News about her disappointment over the decision because it means the community will be left without a place to swim for many years until a new pool site is planned.

“The city has a long history of closing infrastructure and then not building new infrastructure for decades, if ever,” she says. “With the decommissioning of this pool, there is currently no new location identified for the pool. The motion has no timelines. It’s the ambiguity of that, that causes alarm within the community.”

Source URL: https://www.poolspamarketing.com/trade/news/london-ontario-thames-park-pool-faces-decommission-amid-community-concerns/

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