A HIVE of activity is underway at beaches and pools in the city’s north as preparations are made for the summer swim season.

While this week’s unseasonable heat wave has had many temped to take a dip, many of Wollongong City Council’s supervised pools are continuing their scheduled maintenance checks and pre-opening routine.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s what for now, and what changes this weekend.

Beaches

Right now:

North Wollongong beach is open and the flags are up daily between 9am and 4pm.

From Saturday:

The flags will go up on all 17 beaches. Lifeguards will watch over swimmers Monday to Saturday, with volunteers from Surf Life Saving Illawarra on patrol on Sundays and public holidays.

Pools

Right now:

During the winter season, the Continental Pool is open 6am-2pm from Tuesday to Sunday. Mondays are its scheduled cleaning day to keep it in tip-top shape. Corrimal Pool is open from 6am-6pm Monday to Friday and weekends from 7am-2pm with the main 50-metre pool open to swimmers.

From Saturday:

On Saturday many of our pools will return to operation for the summer swim season. However, ongoing maintenance works means that there will be some tweaks to service at some facilities.

For our saltwater pools Port Kembla Pool and the Continental Pool will open as normal. Council is working to have Thirroul Pool open as soon as possible but its reopening date is subject to ongoing works on Thirroul Beach Reserve to the replacement of the ageing stormwater infrastructure as the pool’s intake pipes are impacted by the worksite.

Rock pools are open year-around, although swimmers need to be mindful there are no lifeguard services at these facilities. The cleaning schedule for the rock pools is published on Council’s website on the pools pages so you can stay up to date with which has been most recently spruced up. The cleaning schedule is dependent not only on low tides, but also low seas and swell conditions.

Freshwater, chlorinated pools will reopen on the weekend. Across this week, works, maintenance and final checks are being carried out at Helensburgh. Shade structures are removed over the winter months to protect against damage from the strong winter winds, and these are currently being re-installed.

Helensburgh will reopen as normal, from Saturday.

Heated pools at Corrimal have remained open across winter. The shade structures will be reinstalled over this week. At Corrimal, the toddlers and 25 metre pool are closed while Council addresses a pipe issue, and a timeline for the reopening will be confirmed as soon as possible.

Wollongong City Council Acting General Manager Kerry Hunt said Council is aware the community is looking forward to the chance to use pools and swim at beaches over the summer months.

“This week we welcome 131 seasonal lifeguards into the team who will work across our beaches and pools this summer,” she said.

“They join all our permanent lifeguards including the 21 staff currently working at North Wollongong Beach, the Continental, Dapto and Corrimal Pools over the winter months,” she said.

“These additional lifeguards will significantly bolster our workforce and keep our community safe over what is expected to be a busy time. Over the next few days, the new team members will be picking up their uniforms, completing their induction processes and training and getting to know the team they’ll be a part of for summer. We’ll also have more staff join the team later in the year ahead of the peak swim season in December and January.

“We know some people have asked why we didn’t open more beaches last weekend. Council is currently operating with our winter levels of lifeguards and ahead of the shift to spring/summer staffing levels this coming weekend. The unseasonable heat wave is out of character for this time of year – with beach numbers traditionally quite low in September and October,” Ms Hunt said.

“To fast-track the opening of our beaches was not an option as the level of staffing required to do so is not in place, yet, and it could potentially cause confusion if we were to only open selected beaches, which could encourage swimmers to take unnecessary risks at other locations if they assumed they had additional patrols. Longer-term, climate change predicts that such weather patterns will continue to be a trend. It’s something Council is mindful of as a potential need in the future.’’

Ms Hunt said that while the majority of the pools will be online from the weekend, there are a few with outstanding maintenance issues that need to be resolve.

“Some of our chlorinated pools are showing signs of their age and the 40-plus years they’ve been keeping people cool over summer,’’ Ms Hunt said.

“We do schedule maintenance of these pools for the winter months and do our best to minimise disruption. This year, due to this week’s extreme heat, we’re seeing an interest in swimming at these facilities that we don’t often experience at this time of year. We’re working hard to have all our services operational as soon as possible and thank the community for their patience.’’

Council’s dedicated beach and pools website page is updated regularly with operational hours, and any changes to pools services.

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