Just when you thought children may have another option for the school holidays with outdoor swimming pools given the green light to open, it's unclear whether Illawarra council's will have their plans sorted in time.
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On Sunday, Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the public could take a splash in pools once more across NSW from September 27, as long as councils had a stringent COVID safety plan approved by NSW Health.
A spokeswoman for Wollongong City Council could not confirm whether any of their pools - between Helensburgh and Dapto - would reopen or not for the second week of the school holidays.
Instead, the woman said they were looking at how council could support the operation of their popular pools "over the peak of summer" while council staff were "working towards reopening outdoor pools as soon as possible after September 27".
"Council is currently working on reviewing our risk assessments and preparing our pools to allow council to implement the required COVID safety plan for our staffed community pools that will comply with NSW Health requirements," the spokeswoman said, noting NSW Health would give them more details later in the week.
"Last summer we used a pool booking system to manage attendee numbers at our pools, and it's likely that we will use a similar system this summer. We're currently investigating how we can make refinements to this system, and what implementation will look like for this swim season.
"Presently, all Council patrolled pools will remain closed to comply with the current requirements of the Public Health Order. We'll share with our community any changes to our pool operations as we move forward, and we appreciate our community's patience and understanding as we work to interpret and implement the recent changes to the NSW Public Health Orders."
Council is working towards reopening our outdoor pools as soon as possible after September 27.
- Wollongong City Council
Shellharbour City Council has outdoor pools in Oak Flats, Albion Park and Warilla which were able to operate under COVID-safe protocols last year and are now hoped to be ready for a September 27 reopening.
"Please be patient with us as we wait for the public health orders and prepare plans to reopen," council said in a statement.
"While we cannot guarantee the opening day, we are definitely working hard behind the scenes to ensure everything will be covid-safe for our community and staff."
Further south, and a Kiama Council spokesman said there was mostly natural rockpools in their LGA which had remained open throughout the pandemic as was allowed.
Their council run a smaller pool in Jamberoo though that traditionally only opened in December.
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