'Forgotten' outback town faces scorching summer without a pool

No 'relief from boredom and isolation' as Walgett faces scorching summer without a pool In short: Walgett Memorial swimming pool will remain closed this swimming season, with council ruling it unsafe and beyond repair. The town regularly has days hotter than 40 degrees Celsius during summer, and residents feel they have been neglected. What's next? Member for Barwon Roy Butler wants the state government to conduct an audit of local pools to avoid more closures. As the weather turns, residents of inland Australia begin flocking to their local pool for the start of the swimming season. But with a scorching summer looming, residents of Walgett in western New South Wales will not be taking part in the seasonal ritual. The town's pool will remain closed this season after it was deemed unsafe and beyond repair. It leaves few options for cooling off for Walgett parents like Katrina Marshall and her two boys aged 17 and 14. "Our rivers stink so it's not like the kids can even go down there and enjoy themselves," she said. "It's going to be a very boring summer." Ms Marshall said the closure is a reminder of the disadvantage felt in parts of regional NSW. "We're always forgotten, we're a little town in the middle of nowhere, we don't exist in Sydney unless kids are stealing cop cars," she said. A pool ready to retire The Walgett Memorial swimming pool was first opened to the public in the early 60s. Sixty years on and the pool is showing its age. In 2023, council voted to decommission the pool before patching it up to reopen in late 2024. It closed again in April, before the end of last season, after council deemed it unsafe. Walgett's mayor, Jasen Ramien, said the council did not want to close the pool this season, but it had no choice. "The decision to close the Walgett pool was one of the hardest decisions this council has had to make," he said. "We didn't want to close it, but the reality was the pool had reached a point where it was no longer safe." The council will focus on building a replacement pool instead of investing up to $1 million in short-term repairs that were not guaranteed to last, according to a NSW Public Works inspection. In a letter to NSW Premier Chris Minns, Cr Ramien described the pool as the backbone of the community. "It is one of the few places in our town that offers relief from the heat, but also relief from boredom, disengagement and isolation. "In a community like ours, that matters more than words can properly capture." The Walgett Shire Council has requested up to $420,000 from the state government to provide a free daily bus service from Walgett to the Collarenebri swimming pool. The towns are about 75 kilometres apart, with a bus service going once a day in each direction. Former Olympic swim coach's warning Former Olympic swim coach Laurie Lawrence is worried the bush faces a generation of kids who can't swim due to aging pool infrastructure. "It could be a generation, particularly in the country areas where kids, because they have a lack of pools, don't get to enjoy the water, don't get to stay safe," he said. "We all deserve an opportunity to learn to swim, the whole country." Many council-run pools were built in the 60s during the golden era of swimming. But with a life span of 50 years, most are nearing or have passed their use-by date. "You can't have the country people being disadvantaged over the city people," Mr Lawrence added. The National Drowning Report 2026 by Royal Lifesaving Australia found drowning rates were double for those from the most disadvantaged areas and nearly triple for regional residents and nearly quadruple for remote residents compared to major cities The member for Barwon, Roy Butler, has called on the state government to audit pools across the state. "In New South Wales, 54 per cent of public pools are in regional communities. "I've spoken to the minister for local government, and the minister for sport about doing an audit of those pools, and I've also taken it up with Royal Life Saving Australia … to get them to pull together a report that prioritises pools so then government can prioritise allocation of funds," he added. In 2022, the State of Aquatic Facility Infrastructure in Australia report, commissioned by Royal Life Saving Australia, found 500 pools nationally would need replacing, or require "significant repairs" to the pool shell within the next 10 years, at a cost of $8 billion. Vital blue spaces Ian McShane, an associate professor at the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT in Melbourne, has been following the deterioration and closure of public pools for over 15 years. He said losing a pool is losing a vital part of a town's social fabric. "It would be a loss of an important recreational function. "Local public pools are one place where anybody, regardless of who you are and your social status, can mix." Dr McShane said the loss of a pool would mean people might look elsewhere to settle down. "It can be a tipping point. "Families would be reluctant to move to areas that don't have good social infrastructure." Dr McShane said he wants to see pools classed as critical infrastructure, alongside roads and energy networks. "I think the three levels of government should get together and agree that these are important community places and closing them can really have a significant personal and social impact on communities, particularly small communities."