NEED FOR SWIMMING BATH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 272, 17 February 1941, Page 4

NEED FOR SWIMMING BATH

Sir,—l notice in the BEACON that our Harbour Board, which adminis-* teres the mudflats in front of our town, wishes to warn daring swimmers against swimming "the narrows." That is a good thing. There are plenty of other places where Wliakatane people can get drowned without congesting the mudflats-— beg pardon, thei "harbour," with! their corpses. I refer to the three broad and deep rivers flowing through the county, and the surf beach within handy reach of alt would-be drowning cases. This asminds me that there is really no safe place where people can bathe, much less where children can leant to swim. Certainly there is the much-over-rated Ohope Beach, where one drowning occurred this year., What has happened about the children's swimming pool of which we' used to read so much in your valuable paper last year? Nothing, I believe. However, everyone cannot go to Ohope Beach. It is several miles from the Borough and further , from the jElains. All this seems to, me to indicate the real neerl for a - public swimming bath in the town of Whakatane, or else of a suitable pool in the grounds of the Whakatane School. Perhaps our Harbour Board., having now warned swimmers away from "the Narrows," will do something about providing ar» enclosed pool where bathers may swim. The Harbour Board made a park at the Hsads, so what about it making a swimming pool. Then no one will have any necessity to dive > into "the Narrows." Yours etc., IN THE SWIM.