The ACT government appears to have wiped its hands of the Phillip swimming pool, with Sports Minister Yvette Berry refusing to comment on a way to get the facility re-opened this summer because it is a privately-run business.
For the second consecutive summer, the pool in the heart of Woden has not opened its doors to the public.
Pool manager John Raut this time blamed the weather, saying the rain over spring had meant the pools could not be painted.
There was no set date for the pool opening this summer.
It was all dependent on when the painting could be done, the manager said.
"If we get a break [in the weather], probably late December. If we don't get a break, probably January," Mr Raut said.
When Sports Minister Yvette Berry's office was asked last week if there was anything the government could do to help the facility re-open, a spokesperson said: "This is a privately run pool so we won't be commenting".
This is in contrast to earlier in the year when Ms Berry stated "the ACT government will expect the pool facilities will re-open and be available for public use for the 2022-23 summer and beyond."
Woden Valley Community Council president Fiona Carrick said the pool was a community resource and the government should be interested in whether it opened or not.
"The government and the owner are both playing games and treating the public very poorly," she said.
"They're land-banking, that's what I assume they're doing. They want to sell it for a squillion for apartments."
Murrumbidgee Labor MLA Dr Marisa Paterson said she sought advice from Minister Berry last month about the pool.
"The advice I received was that 'As required by their lease, the operator is currently understood to be repairing the pool with an aim to have it open before the end of the year'," Dr Paterson said.
"I am very keen to see it open before the end of the year, so that locals can enjoy the pool through the summer months."
While leased by a private company owned by Dr Wayne Houghton, the Phillip pool has been used by the community for more than 50 years and is treasured for its open space and pools that are outside, rather than inside.
It has the only 50-metre outside pool on the southside.
The pool site is being enclosed by apartments, with more going up to its south.
When asked if the swimming pool site was on the market, Mr Raut said "you'd have to ask the owner" but added the owner was "uncontactable".
Dr Houghton, whose company Glencora Pty Ltd leases the site, has previously expressed little hope for any future of the pool and its accompanying ice skating rink.
Dr Houghton told the Assembly's standing committee on planning and urban renewal in 2017 that "we now have a facility which is nearing the end of its life".
"I cannot see a future there," he told the committee five years ago.
Last month the ACT government backed a private proposal for a new ice-skating rink in Tuggeranong that would include two international standard ice rinks and curling lanes.
Cruachan Investments Pty Ltd and Pelligra Holdings Pty Ltd have proposed to design, construct, own, operate and maintain the new facility, to be built on Rowland Rees Crescent in Greenway.
When asked how that might affect the Phillip ice skating rink, manager John Raut was unperturbed, saying there had been plenty of announcements over the years about a new rink in Tuggeranong and he was still sceptical it would go ahead.
He said ice skating rinks were an investment that were "very difficult to get money out of".
Ms Carrick, meanwhile, said any future option for the Phillip site, such as putting a 25-metre pool in an apartment block was not good enough.
Phillip was a facility that provided for people across the generations. She said the government should buy back the lease and develop the site so all the community continued to have access to it.
"We need a leisure centre like Tuggeranong and Molonglo, whereby you've got the gym and the meeting rooms, and you could also activate land north of the athletics track so you have a 50-metre indoor pool so you can swim year-round and then a 25-metre pool outside," Ms Carrick said.
"I go to Tuggeranong and Molonglo and I don't see teenagers meeting, socialising, having fun in an indoor pool. You do need your outdoor one. I think, we know, we have options and we don't need to go for a lowest-common denominator.
"We can plan something better if they would let us."
