Mbombela losing out with watersports
King's Park uses remote control cleaning machines to scrub the bottom and sides of their pools daily...In stark contrast, the maintenance crew at Van Riebeeck Park use scrubbing brushes to clean the tiles in its pool by hand.
NELSPRUIT – Mbombela municipality is sitting on a gold mine and it seems as though nobody has noticed. This was a stern statement made by a senior official within one of the country’s largest swimming fraternities in regards to the current state of affairs at the Van Riebeeck Park swimming facility.
“For a municipality to boast a fully operational Olympic standard swimming pool complex is a huge bonus,” said Norman Munsamy, supervisor at King’s Park swimming pool in Durban. “We welcome between 200 and 300 swimmers through our gates daily at a rate of R7.00 per child and R13.00 per adult. That equates to around R48 000 a month generated just from our gate sales. This figure excludes the income generated from hosting large galas and other national events.”
A swimming pool complex such as King’s Park is utilized by swimming clubs, diving associations and other water sports fraternities such as water polo and underwater hockey clubs. These clubs all pay for the hiring of the swimming pool when they host competitions or training clinics. Kingspark has grown to accommodate an indoor as well as an outdoor swimming pool.
“Both of our pools are maintained daily with Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays reserved for major cleanups of the change rooms and maintenance of the pumps and filtering systems.”
The swimming pool’s surface is checked daily along with the tiles around the pool deck and if any damages are reported, a requisition is submitted to the municipality who then dispatch a repair crew to the site. “We repair any tiny damages as they happen in order to prevent serious damage to one of our most valuable assets. Maintenance and diligence is key to the success of any public facility.”
During the off-season this year, major repair work was conducted on the roof covering the indoor pool and during the 2012 season, the tiles in the diving pool at the same facility were completely replaced. “It took some searching to find the right tiles for the pool because that pool was constructed nearly 30 years ago. But we found the tiles and we managed to restore our pool within a few months which did not interfere too much with our regular diving crowd.”
King’s Park uses remote control cleaning machines to scrub the bottom and sides of their pools daily to prevent the growth of algae and build up of dirt on the surface. One such machine was estimated to cost in the region of R15 000. In stark contrast, the maintenance crew at Van Riebeeck Park use scrubbing brushes to clean the tiles in its pool by hand. “The problem is that the deep end is 3 metres in depth – I don’t know how they manage to adequately clean down there?”
“R4 million was spent on constructing what is essentially an office block where so much more could have been accomplished with much less funding than that,” said Mpumalanga Swimming chairman, Emile van Veenhuysen. “Replacing broken toilets and reconstructing timber roof trusses would have made the world’s difference. The public don’t know what has been done at the swimming pool because they can’t physically see any changes to its condition.”
King’s Park swimming pool mirrors on many levels the Nelspruit pool – with the only difference being the eThekwini municipality’s continued support of the facility and the maintenance thereof.
“A King’s Park-standard facility is not an unattainable dream. Correctly implemented projects spread over a short period could see Nelspruit host national and perhaps even international events in the future. All we need is for all role players to come on board, including Mbombela Local Municipality.”
Comparing apples with apples
Kingspark swimming pool
• 50 metres length x 25 metres width
• 2 metres depth right through the length of the pool
• 10 lanes for swimming galas
• Starting blocks on both ends
• Touch pads on both ends
• Heated
• Change rooms for men and women with showers
• Hosts national events accross all watersports arenas
• Spectators stands all around the pool area
• Electronic scoreboard
• Generates approximately R 48 000 per month through entrance sales.
Van Riebeeck Park swimming pool
• 50 metres length x 25 metres width.
• 1 metre deep shallow end and 3.5 metres depth at the deep end.
• 10 lanes for swimming galas.
• Starting blocks on both ends.
• Touch pads on deep end of the pool. (Sponsored by Swimming Mpumalanga)
• Not Heated.
• Change rooms for men and women with showers.
• Unable to host national events accross all watersports arenas.
• Spectators stands only at one corner of the the pool area (spectators have to sit on the grass).
• Electronic scoreboard (sponsored by Swimming Mpumalanga)
• Currently no monthly income stats available.
