Gore Aquatic Centre temporary closure

The Gore Aquatic Centre is getting a major refresh and maintenance overhaul next month.

The pool will be closed from Monday 5 September to Monday 17 October to allow contractors and staff to carry out a top-to-toe spring clean.

Aquatic centre manager Martin Mackereth said customers with an annual membership or concession card would get an extension to allow for the six-week closure.

While a lot of the work will be behind the scenes, customers will notice a difference.

“We’re staying with the same colour theme, but everything is being refreshed.”

The biggest job will be draining water from all the pools. The main pool alone takes two days to empty.

“Draining 600,000 litres takes time. A bigger challenge is refilling the main pool, then bringing the water up to temperature,” Mr Mackereth said.

It will take two days to refill the pool and another week and a half to get the temperature up to the optimum 28.5C.

Some of the other tasks in the maintenance programme are:

• Replaced damaged tiles and grout all pools main/ leisure/ spa
• Check and replace shower partitions in all change areas
• Replace signage
• Paint the leisure pool water umbrella
• Paint the change room walls
• Paint reception, public toilets, and meeting room
• Repair or replace the carpet in the café area due to fading

Mr Mackereth said the power would be off for at least a couple of weeks, which means Ice Sports Southland’s ice skating rink will also be closed. However, the event centre would be available for large scale events.

The work was part of the pool’s regular maintenance programme and would cost about $600,000. He said the work had been scheduled to fit in between the competitive swimming and ice skating seasons.

“The closure is going to be disruptive for our regular customers, and we appreciate their understanding.

“We are already planning something special for the reopening,” Mr Mackereth said.