31 October, 2024

Community benefits from TGS swimming pool upgrade

The TGS pool’s upgraded facilities will include:

• A 33m x 13m pool, deepened with a ‘ring-beam’ design to provide a deep-end of 2m and shallow end of (1.8m).
• Heating by eight new heat-pumps.
• Upgraded pool plant systems, including salt-water chlorination conversion.
• Changing shed upgrades.
• Pool lighting.
• Water polo goals, new swim lane ropes.
• Foundations to enable future installation of a roof.

Devonport Swim Club has been thrown a lifeline with the $2 million upgrade of the Takapuna Grammar School (TGS) pool.
The swim club had been based at the Navy swimming pool for decades, but has been shut out since the Covid pandemic.
With the upgrade to the TGS pool, the club has committed to a three-year licence to run swim squads at the school.
Construction has started on the upgrade, with a reopening planned in term one, 2025, meaning serious squad swimmers will no longer have to travel off the Devonport peninsula for pool training.
The upgraded pool will be heated year-round, floodlit and deepened by 70cm to allow water polo.
It will be used for physical education, swimming coaching and swim squads as well as for cross-training for other sports. The work includes upgraded changing facilities and a new pool filtration and salt chlorination system.
TGS board of trustees property committee chair Michael Sweetman said the upgrade was essentially a new pool, which allowed year round usage instead of only around 12 weeks use of the existing facility.
While the $2 million budget may seem a lot, it was far cheaper than starting from scratch, he said.
Auckland Grammar’s new pool, for example, cost $15 million.
The school, which has launched a “Buy a Brick” campaign, was hoping the community would contribute around $300,000 to the project.
“Its super exciting,” Sweetman said.
The heart of the project was about improving water safety for students and the wider community.
Devonport Swim Club president Tom King said it was delighted to collaborate with TGS to offer members and the community the opportunity to use a pool on the peninsula.
When it was shut out of the Navy pool four years ago, the club had around 140 members.
During its recent hiatus the club kept active organising the annual Round North Head swim. Members had informally kept in touch by forming ocean-swimming groups.
King said the TGS pool would offer greater flexibility around squad and coaching times, whereas the Navy pool had operated under strict time limits.
The swim club’s coaching sessions and squads were aimed at improving swimming techniques rather than training swimmers for competitions.
This suited recreational swimmers wanting better fitness, or others training for different activities such as triathlons, surf lifesaving, water polo and the like, King said.
For competitive swimmers, the pressure on parents dropping kids at pools miles away from Devonport would be alleviated.
King foresees a mutually beneficial relationship with the school: for example a morning training/coaching session for adults could be held from 6.30am to 7.30am, with a subsequent session for TGS students which would finish in time for school.
The swim club would make a regular payment to the school as part of its lease.
The Devonport-Takapuna Local Board voted in its latest community grants round to give $6995 to TGS for pool ropes.

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Hauraki School opens new pool

Hauraki School is holding an opening for its new pool at the end of this month.
Principal Clarinda Franklin announced the completion of the school’s Cool Pool Project last week. This follows years of fundraising by the school community to reach a target of $500,000.
The fundraising included fairs, auctions, raffles and a dance party.
Former pupils and parents will be welcome at a school celebration on Friday 29 November at 2pm, with a public pool day to follow.