The re-opening of the Bombala and Cooma swimming pools has been delayed until the new year following further setbacks with upgrades to each facility.

Snowy Monaro Regional Council is upgrading the Cooma Festival Swimming Pool and Bombala War Memorial Swimming Pool with each pool receiving new filtration systems, plant room upgrades and refurbishments to the main pools, among other key work.

Locals hoping to complete their first summer laps will have to wait until 2026 after a delay in the arrival of the new filtration systems.

In an update on 21 November, council said it hoped to have both pools open before Christmas, pending the arrival of the new filtration systems before 1 December.

Snowy Monaro Mayor, Cr Chris Hanna, told this masthead council is still awaiting arrival of the equipment needed before re-opening each pool.

“Repairing and upgrading two public pools that have stood for many decades without any significant work done to them is a complex project,” Cr Hanna said.

“We do our best to make sure that the estimates for closure and r-eopening dates are accurate, but the nature of complex projects like these means that sometime we will get it wrong.

“Council and our contractors are going to continue doing everything we can to get the pools open as soon as possible.”

Regular Cooma pool user, Gail Eastaway OAM, said locals are frustrated with the delays and a lack of information from council.

“The money to upgrade both pools has been with council for many years. We have endured delay after delay and now we have a rough estimate of the Cooma pool not re-opening until mid-January,” Ms Eastaway said.

Council has received two rounds of state government funding to deliver the pool upgrades. Funding came through two rounds of the Stronger Communities Fund, one lot in 2018 and the second in 2021.

In July this year, council held a community meeting at the Cooma pool where project staff and Cr Hanna informed the public the upgrades to both pools would not be finished before the start of the usual swimming season in mid-October.

At the meeting, council said it was working towards an opening by early December.

Cr Hanna, has apologised to residents for the setback.

“We got it wrong this time,” Cr Hanna said.

“We were overly optimistic and we’ve let the communities in Cooma and Bombala down as a result.

“We are sorry for not getting it right, and apologise for the terrible timing of these delays and the impact they are going to have on our residents.”