By Michael Giles
LAST Thursday, July 10, at an aquatic centre energy efficiency seminar at St Leonards College in Brighton East, plans were unveiled to privately fund a new aquatic centre and sports hub on Phillip Island.
The brainchild of members of the Phillip Island Aquatic Centre Fund, including Newhaven resident, Derek Harbison, of energy efficiency company, Negawatt Projects, the plan already has the support of a group of local property investors and a cross-section of aquatic industry suppliers who are pioneering a cheaper, more efficient way to build community swimming centres.
Speaking at the seminar last week, Mr Harbison said the drive to slash the energy usage and environmental impact of domestic, commercial, industrial and government buildings was accelerating, bringing the need to design better, more efficient, cheaper aquatic centres into sharper focus.
“The estimated cost of our new aquatic centre, fully funded, will be less than $10 million, which stands in stark contrast to the $94 million they’re talking about to build two aquatic centres at Cowes and Wonthaggi,” said Mr Harbison.
“The new designs proposed by the Bass Coast Shire Council simply can’t be funded and can’t be afforded on an ongoing basis, either on the energy they are projected to use or their annual cost to the community.
“This is one of the lowest socio-economic areas in the state, but also one of the busiest from a visitor point of view, and the projects they are proposing would break the council,” said Mr Harbison.
“The new project we have in mind is fully-funded, net zero and off-the-grid.
“And after exhaustive attempts to involve them in this project, we’ve decided to go it alone.”
The project, to be developed on a 50-hectare site at the old Phillip Island Airport will have a 25-metre 10-lane pool, warm water pool, program pool and gym/dry exercise spaces.
Providing the commercial scale for the project are plans for a 300-bed group accommodation facility, 60-bed elite sports centre, dining hall/functions facilities, caravan and boat storage facilities and significant investment in solar and battery infrastructure.
“As we’re all well aware, being at the end of the electricity supply grid, Phillip Island and San Remo constantly has problems with power outages and brownouts.
“We anticipate producing significant excess power which can be sold back to the grid at peak rates of up to $13kWh helping to offset our running costs and the area’s power problems.”
Mr Harbison said the group had already secured an option to develop part of the old airport site, which could no longer be developed for housing following council’s approval, last Wednesday, of a new Statement of Planning Policy, establishing the settlement boundary for Cape Woolamai in its present location, along Woolamai Beach Road.
“I don’t think we’ll have a problem attracting community support once they realise what we’re proposing to do here,” said Mr Harbison.
“This is the perfect location to develop an aquatic and sports hub, on the Island, but also close to Newhaven College, and San Remo which the shire has designated for significant growth over the next 50 years.”
Mr Harbison said the potential to attract school groups, community groups and sporting clubs, including those looking for elite training facilities, was significant and a perfect fit for what Phillip Island and surrounds already had to offer.
A major part of the seminar was devoted to exploring cheaper, more efficient ways to develop community aquatic centres, driven by reducing crippling energy costs and global-warming imperatives.
They drew on experience in New Zealand and Europe where design engineers have turned away from glasshouse, “airport hanger” style legacy projects costing $100s of millions, to lower-line, all-electric, purpose-built buildings with fully controlled, energy-efficient environments.
They’re entirely at odds with the $41.8 million (Cowes) and $52.8 million (Wonthaggi) projects produced for the shire by the Otium Planning Group Pty Ltd in association with Peddle Thorp Architects & Turner Townsend Quantity Surveyors at a total construction cost of $94.6 million.
Mr Harbison says such projects are outdated and unaffordable and the shire either needed to get onboard with the project proposed by the Phillip Island Aquatic Centre Fund, or at the very least, scrap its present plans for aquatic centres in Cowes and Wonthaggi and start again.
He said a good place for the shire to start a review of its projects would be by contacting mechanical engineer Jonathan Duverge of Northern Environmental Design, who had completed a PhD comparing the operation of aquatic centres, and consultants such Brooke Atkins of LARCAN (Leisure, Aquatics, Recreation, Consultants, Australia, and New Zealand) who had advised councils in
Queensland, NSW and Victoria, including regional councils on the development of best-fit aquatic centres for their communities.
