While Sydney is famous for its opera house and harbour bridge, it has another secret: it has more ocean pools than any other city in the world. And one of them is getting a big upgrade. This is a tale of how the project got to this point, which involves the mayor, a few thousand protesters, and about 100 million dollars worth of work.

In the end, it took more than six years from councillors voting on the design to the pool’s doors opening. That’s not as bad as Singapore, which opened the massive Marina Bay Sands resort/casino/hotel complex in just six years – but it is still a long time.

When campaigners first wrote to mayor Barry Baird calling for the North Sydney pool’s upgrade, they were confident of a quick response. Then they started to realise the project’s scale. “It was going to be a huge amount of money,” says Kathryn Butler, who grew up swimming at the beach-side pools around Maroubra and is spearheading this modernisation. “So it was a little bit of a wake-up call.”

The mayor initially responded positively, saying that “if the pool can be saved, I’m happy to write to the minister and request funds for the rebuild.” But then he changed his mind.

In late 2021, after the project had blown out to $58 million and then $89 million, he decided to do what any responsible mayor would do: hand over the project to the state government for a rethink.

The new plan is a much cheaper, smaller pool that will be built on the same site but with just a few more metres of water depth, to match the existing beach-side decking and provide lane availability. It’s expected to open in 2024.

But there are other challenges besides the budget. Those old-fashioned construction methods also mean the pools are more vulnerable to currents, swells and rainfall than sea structures built with modern techniques. And rising sea levels will require raising the walls.

Despite the slow progress, locals remain optimistic. A Facebook page set up to support the pool’s upgrade now has more than 20,000 followers. The North Sydney Pools group’s chairwoman, Anne Baker, hopes the community will be able to find ways of covering the remaining costs beyond the usual swimming carnivals. For example, charging fashion week shows and production companies to use the pool, which are well outside the usual remit of a local pool, may help recoup some of the millions.

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