For generations, the south-west Victorian community of Port Fairy learned to swim at a safe, sheltered beach known as Pea Soup, before graduating to swim and surf the tourist town’s rougher beach breaks.
But in brutal winters, icy autumns and chilly springs, those beaches were only for the hardiest of souls.
The benefits of an indoor heated pool were plain to see, especially to those tired of the half-hour drive down the highway to the closest pool in Warrnambool.
By the mid-90s, residents had started campaigning in earnest for an indoor heated swimming pool in Port Fairy.
Pea Soup in Port Fairy is a sheltered bay where generations of locals have learnt to swim. (ABC South West Victoria: Daniel Miles)
The community took its pitch to the Moyne Shire Council and, after a divisive battle, won, securing start-up funds in exchange for a promise that the pool committee would never ask the council for additional money again.
The pool opened on June 7, 2007, as Belfast Aquatics, a heated 25-metre lap pool with gym facilities, built and operated by the community.
Port Fairy pool timelineSeptember, 1996 — Moyne Shire commits $2,500 to a feasibility study for a heated pool in Port Fairy2000 — The state government contributes $150,000 to a pool2001 — The Port Fairy Folk Festival contributes $150,000 to a poolAugust, 2003 — Moyne Shire commits $400,000 to the project on the proviso it does not have to contribute further January, 2005 — Construction starts on the poolJune, 2007 — The pool opensAugust, 2007 — The pool committee goes to Moyne Shire asking for financial assistanceApril, 2009 — Moyne Shire agrees to give $150,000 to the Port Fairy pool annually2021 — Moyne Shire ups it annual contribution to $200,000May, 2021 — Eight-year-old Cooper Onyett drowns at the pool2022 — Moyne Shire starts paying the pool’s insurance premiums up to $110,000November, 2025 — The pool is closed after the discovery of mould and algae throughout
Two and a half months later, the community-led Port Fairy Pool Management Group came to council asking for help to pay its bills.
Nineteen years on, the pool is closed, its financial situation dire, and the building in disrepair.
Today, the council is being blamed for the closure, even though the shire was not responsible for the facility and had given more than $3 million in ratepayers’ money to the pool committee to help keep it afloat.
A push to reopen the pool and gym has gained momentum in the town, with symbolic blue fish of support lining fences.
And while some members of the community are angry, history shows the situation stems from a broken promise that led to a predictable outcome.
Port Fairy wants pool
Locals in the coastal town, with a population of 3,500, had talked about getting a pool for years.
Other smaller towns in the shire had one, so why should Port Fairy miss out, the residents reasoned.
In 1995, the Port Fairy Swimming Pool Action Group formed and began community fundraising and meeting with politicians and businesses to secure funding for a purpose-built indoor pool and gym.
Moyne Shire Council tentatively agreed to help, handing over more than $30,000 over the next five years for various feasibility studies.
In 2000, almost every business in Port Fairy shut its doors for 15 minutes so a photo could be taken of about 300 residents gathered on the town’s main street — a publicity stunt aimed at swaying then-Victorian sports minister Justin Madden to hand over money.
It worked.
Port Fairy has a population of about 3,500, which expands up to 12,000 over summer. (
ABC News: Matt Neal
)
The state government of the day chimed in $150,000 for a pool — a figure matched by the Port Fairy Folk Festival committee the following year.
Residents and businesses also contributed money to help build it.
But the hold-out was the local council.
Moyne Shire feared the town’s population, even with a seasonal tourist influx that boosts numbers to about 12,000 each summer, could not financially sustain a pool.
Its fear would prove well-founded in a very short space of time.
Broken promise as the group lands in trouble
After repeated reassurances and guarantees from the pool action group, the council acquiesced and agreed to back the project — to a point.
It would provide the land, $400,000, and a $100,000 “start-up contribution fund” to be drawn on as necessary for the first three years of operations, with a $50,000 annual cap.
At a special meeting on August 12, 2003, the council set out a position statement, noting that it was “taking the pool group on trust … that it is genuine in wanting to, in its own right, successfully deliver a pool and operate it in the long term without it being any burden on the council”.
The pool was to be “a stand-alone body” — not under the council’s umbrella — with the pool group assuming “full responsibility for delivering the project”.
Belfast Aquatics in Port Fairy has been closed after mould and algae were found in the facility. (ABC South West Victoria: Daniel Miles)
The pool opened on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in June 2007.
The Warrnambool Standard reported, “it was hard to find a spot in the water as crowds of people had their first swim”.
But on August 28, 2007 — less than three months later — council minutes show the Port Fairy Pool Management Group came cap-in-hand to the council requesting $50,000 from the start-up fund and a $100,000 interest-free loan to be repaid by the end of 2009.
By September 2008, the pool group needed the remaining $50,000 from the start-up fund and had relinquished its lease of the land where the pool was built.
Council demanded access to the group’s business plan “with a view to calling for expressions of interest” for a new pool management group, but never followed through.
By January 2009, approximately 18 months after the pool opened, the council had “received a request from the Port Fairy Pool Management Group to assist in the ongoing operation of the facility”.
‘Pools don’t make money’
The question some people were asking, especially the Moyne Shire residents who lived outside Port Fairy, was whether the pool committee knew its project was financially unviable from the get-go.
The pool in Port Fairy is closed “until further notice”. (ABC South West Victoria: Daniel Miles)
In 2012, a councillor referenced “a review by a local accountancy firm”, which showed that “no indoor heated pool ran at a profit unless it had a population base of at least 30,000 people”.
A pool committee member admitted to this reporter in the late 2000s that the committee had long known the project was financially unsustainable and that the council’s ongoing assistance would be needed.
That person told this reporter that the committee assumed that, if the facility were built, the Moyne Shire Council could be relied upon to provide financial support to keep it open, as it would then be seen as too valuable a local asset to lose.
Belfast Aquatics was opened in June 2007, but closed in November 2025. (ABC South West Victoria: Daniel Miles)
Long-term pool committee member, Anne McIlroy, who joined the committee about a year after the pool was built, told the ABC this month that even in its early days, the pool struggled financially.
“The pool was running on its own when I started there, but … we couldn’t run without funding from the Moyne Shire,” Ms McIlroy said.
“You know, and I know, pools don’t make money.
“So, of course, there was a problem.”
A $3.4 million problem
In April 2009, less than two years after opening, Moyne Shire Council agreed to contribute $150,000 to the pool annually, as well as chipping in money through a levy on council-run caravan parks.
A decade later, the $100,000 interest-free loan remained unpaid. Council eventually wiped out the outstanding $80,000 debt.
In the 2021-22 budget, council increased its annual contribution to $200,000 and began paying the pool’s insurance premiums up to $120,000 per year.
This coincided with the death of Cooper Onyett, an eight-year-old who drowned at the pool on May 21, 2021, while on a school trip.
Cooper Onyett drowned at Belfast Aquatics while on a school camp. (Supplied)
The pool operators were later convicted and fined $80,000 in the Warrnambool County Court in relation to the boy’s death, while the state department of education was fined $100,000.
The parents of a boy who almost drowned five minutes before Cooper Onyett are in the process of suing the pool operators and the state government.
After the discovery of mould and algae in the facility in November last year, the pool closed.
Moyne Shire said at the time it did not have “any plans for the facility to continue operating”, with further investigations revealing signs of rot and corrosion that threatened the structural integrity of the building.
There were also signs that wiring and ventilation were not up to standard, and that the pool had been leaking water.
By this point, Moyne Shire ratepayers had poured an estimated $3.4 million into the pool, despite the council putting in writing 23 years earlier that it would never “make any contribution to defray the ongoing operating and maintenance costs of the pool”.
Future of pool uncertain
Moyne Shire Council said it would cost at least $2 million to get the pool up and running again, though that figure could change as investigations continue.
Meanwhile, councillors have been receiving abuse and threats from Port Fairy residents over the pool’s shutdown, even though it is not a council facility and local media have reported the dire need for repairs.
About 300 Port Fairy locals gathered recently for a meeting about the pool’s future. (ABC News: Ted O’Connor)
The pool was formally handed back to Moyne Shire Council last month.
Today, it remains empty. The lap pool is bone dry, exacerbating fears of a leak in the structure’s shell.
The local campaign to reopen the pool continues, though questions remain about the facility’s financial viability.
According to the Port Fairy Community Pool Management Group’s financial statements lodged with the Australian Charities & Not-for-profits Commission, the pool lost $245,940 in 2024, bringing three-year losses to nearly $481,000.