Games officials to check Hamilton pool

Press, 13 February 1986, Page 23

Games officials to check Hamilton pool

PA Hamilton Officials from the 1990 Commonwealth Games organising committee will visit Hamilton next week to check whether the city’s Centennial Pool is suitable as a games venue. The visit brightens Hamilton’s chances of sharing the games with the host city, Auckland — but a city councillor, Mr Ted Armstrong, is preparing for some hard selling. Mr Armstrong, chairman of the council’s recreation and welfare committee, said that an organising committee member, Bob Lorimer, and a

consulting engineer, Alan Bickers, would be travelling from Auckland in response to an invitation from the council. The announcement coincided with news that the first stage of a $9.6 million Commonwealth Games swimming centre had started at Henderson, but Mr Armstrong said he hoped the visit would be “more than an act of courtesy.” “It may well be that there is a tiny chink in Auckland’s parochial armour which just might open up when our existing, cost-free amenity is revealed to them,” he said.

Mr Armstrong admitted to “some feelings of apprehension” at news that excavation had begun for the Henderson pool. He said the Henderson project was staged according to “when money becomes available” and could depend on “the great cure for all financial ailments at present haunting ratepayers, Lotto.” . If it was decided Hamilton’s pool was a better bet, the hole in Henderson need not be wasted, said Mr Armstrong. It could be used for Manukau’s uncollected rubbish, the result of industrial action, and then backfilled.