WEYBURN - The Weyburn Leisure Centre’s indoor pool may be closed well into 2025, as the city looks into what options are available to them to repair or replace it, council was told on Monday evening.
Providing the background to the situation that led to the closure of the pool, leisure services director Andrew Crowe explained when they began to fill the pool for opening in September, they found they were losing 32,000 litres a day, which sparked an investigation.
Using ground-penetrating radar, the findings showed “significant damage to the pool basin and hot tub” with cracks in the cement, and problems with the rebar in the cement, creating structural issues.
The City then engaged Stantec Engineering, which had carried out an assessment of city facilities in July and August, to do a report for the City on what options are available to them for dealing with the pool.
“I will be providing something back to council to see how you would like us to go,” said Crowe, noting the pool will be closed for the rest of 2024, and will likely be well into 2025 “for quite some time.”
At this point, he added, they are looking at having seasonal swimming, as the outdoor pool and equipment are all in good shape, and will be able to be used next year when the weather permits.
“Unfortunately we had to lay off our part-time employees,” he said, noting the full-time employees were able to be transitioned into other positions.
“I appreciate the predicament you’re in,” said Coun. Jeff Richards, noting he has been asked by members of the public why these problems weren’t looked into while the pool was empty in the summer.
“We didn’t have these issues when we closed the pool for the summer,” said Crowe. “The concrete is underneath the tiles, so it’s not visible. We did have a facility assessment which said we should look at the basin. Typically a facility like this has 45 to 50 years of life, and this one is about 35 years old, so it’s early, but it was on our radar to see what kind of condition it was in. We didn’t expect this to happen. It’s really unfortunate, but there was nothing staff could’ve done to identify the problem.”
In the meantime, those residents who had passes to the pool can get refunds, or arrange to have them transferred for use at the Credit Union Spark Centre. Anyone who has questions about this can call the Spark Centre, or send an email to the City’s leisure services department.
