General News
6 May, 2026
Pool report debunked
BABINDA pool’s future might soon reach a watershed moment.
Public submissions closed on April 30 and now it is up to Cairns Regional Council to decide if it will stick to its plan to ‘retire’ the pool – or change its resolve and give the iconic facility an extended life, possibly with improvements.
In its submission, the local community association, Babinda Taskforce, has included a large and comprehensive list of reasons why the pool should not be shut down.
The list is in response to council, through its ‘draft aquatic facilities strategy’, which put across arguments for the pool’s retirement, including low demand by pool users – “extremely small catchment not conducive to supporting the viability of an aquatic centre” – and high operating costs per visitor.
That document also presents Babinda Boulders and Bramston Beach as “viable alternatives” for recreational swimming.
The taskforce has strongly countered the justifications for wanting to shut the pool down, saying council’s own figures show Babinda’s population supports its pool per capita more than any other aquatic facility in the council area.
“Our pool isn’t under-used – it’s being under-served,” the taskforce says.
“You can’t use a pool that is locked every weekend and closed all winter. While the council spends $12.4 million on the city’s Lagoon and Esplanade, they are trying to save pennies by closing our only safe place to swim.”
The taskforce also crunched council’s numbers on pool running costs.
“Council claims the pool costs $71.23 per visit, but that’s only because they keep the gates locked for 60% of the year.
“If they opened the pool on a standard network schedule, that cost would drop to approximately $28.05 – well within the range of other council pools.”
Babinda Taskforce says in the scheme of council’s overall budget of nearly three quarters of a billion dollars, the cost of running Babinda pool is a mere drop in a very large body of water.
“Babinda pool costs $300,000 per year on average. The reality: our pool accounts for just 0.04% of the total budget,” it says.
“Think of it this way: If the council’s entire annual budget was just one 24-hour day, the cost to run the Babinda Pool represents only 35 seconds of that day.
“Is the safety and health of our community not worth 35 seconds of their time? We believe it is.”
The taskforce submission has also reiterated concerns – expressed by many in the community – that there were major gaps and shortfalls in the consultation process leading up to the aquatic strategy report.
“Out of the seven schools in the Babinda district and surrounds plus our kindy, zero were engaged by the council or their consultants.
“You can’t claim to have ‘consulted with schools’ if you ignore the schools that are actually being impacted. This isn’t a strategy, it’s a failure of process.
“The report describes 578 responses as a ‘strong’ base for a region of 170,000 people – that is only 0.3% of the population.
“The Babinda reality: While the report relies on that 0.3%, our local community survey has already gathered 330 responses from a district of just 2900.
“That is 11% of our population speaking up – a response rate 40 times higher than the one used in the official strategy.”
There have been some concerns that with the impending closure of Babinda pool for winter maintenance at the end of May – a normal, yearly procedure – council may use the opportunity to stick to its plan to shut it down permanently, by simply not re-opening it in early September.
But councillor (division one) Brett Moller has assured The Observer that will not happen – and that council officers and councillors will go through and “workshop” the public submissions over the winter months, before making a recommendation to include the future of Babinda pool.
While not specifically ruling out its permanent closure this year, Cairns Mayor Amy Eden said: “The scheduled annual winter closure of the Babinda Pool is part of council’s routine operations and occurs each year.”
“At this stage, no final decisions have been made regarding the future of the Babinda pool” and that “community feedback will now be carefully reviewed and will inform council’s consideration of the draft strategy.”
“Council appreciates the strong interest from the Babinda community and thanks everyone who has taken the time to provide input,” Cr Eden
The taskforce in its submission has asked council to extend the pool’s life by at least a year – but then to also fully investigate options of how the facility can have a longer-term future.
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