Maintenance of city's public swimming pools should be a priority

The Herald

23-05-2025

For many in Nelson Mandela Bay's northern areas and townships in particular, public swimming pools offer the only entertainment and relief from the heat during our blistering summers.
Yet many of the facilities in these areas have been vandalised and left to deteriorate, some to a point where they are now beyond repair.
Take for instance the derelict pool in Schauderville which has been out of commission for years.
During a recent site visit, public works & infrastructure minister Dean Macpherson called on Eastern Cape MEC Siphokazi Lusithi to relocate the pool to a new site, citing the facility's vandalised and irreparable state.
Stripped of infrastructure and left derelict since the Covid-19 lockdown, the facility posed a direct threat to residents, particularly children, according to DA northern areas constituency head Yusuf Cassim, who formally requested the relocation in a letter to Macpherson's office.
'There is an urgent need to relocate the long-abandoned pool, which has become a hotspot for criminal activity, illegal dumping and gang violence,' he said.
A new site — on land opposite the Moore Dyke sports precinct and owned by the provincial public works department — has already been identified.
And now it is up to the relevant officials and authorities to act to ensure a suitable facility is erected for those in this area and its surrounds, those who cannot afford transport to and entry fees at more expensive facilities or the Bay's many beaches.
Because our public pools provide a safe space — in the areas where they live — for our children and teens to play, stay active and avoid negative influences such as drugs and crime which are rife in these communities.
In addition, in a country where nearly 30% of drownings occur in children under the age of 14, these pools offer a space in which to host swimming lessons, a much-needed life skill.
So it is imperative that municipalities, working with the other necessary arms of government, prioritise building and maintaining public swimming pools in disadvantaged communities and that they do so in partnership with NGOs, private sponsors, schools and surrounding communities — all of whom will then have a vested interest in ensuring the safekeeping of these facilities.
The Herald