During 2016/17, before I got elected to Council, I led a successful high profile community campaign to get our Council to commit to keeping Maylands Waterland in Maylands and refurbish the existing pools. The work on the campaign included ongoing lobbying of councillors and keeping the media interested in the issue.
In July 2018, during the discussion on the 2018-19 budget, Council changed its decision on the Maylands Waterland Refurbishment project and decided to look for external grant funding to cover the entire cost of refurbishing the pools (i.e., 3 million dollars). The decision stated that if such funding was not found by October 2018, then the plan to close the site would go ahead, while progressing a different plan to build a big playground (or similar) using ‘cash-in-lieu public open space’ funds. As a result of this decision, I voted against the budget.
On several occasions afterwards, I (together with several other Councillors and members of the community) tried to get Council to support refurbishing Maylands Waterland (i.e. keeping some of the pools), but all of those attempts eventually failed.
Since then, I have been focusing on ensuring that the project moves forward so that we can see a new water-based park at the Maylands Foreshore Reserve by November 2021.
For more details on this ongoing issue, please read my previous posts below (starting with the most recent one):
[Click here to read about the separate ‘Change the Waterland’s opening hours’ campaign. ]
Councillor Elli Petersen-Pik, City of Bayswater - South Ward 