SWIMMING BATHS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4918, 21 December 1925, Page 3

SWIMMING BATHS.

DISCUSSION BY CHAMBER.

REFERRED TO SUB-COMMITTEE.

At the meeting of the Paeroa Chamber of Commerce on Thursday night Mr C. H. Pascoe opened a discussion on ways and means of providing swimming baths for Paeroa. ,He suggested that an art union might be arranged.

Mr Cassrels contended that the establishment of baths should be a municipal undertaking. As the Borough Council was already labouring under financial difficulties it appeared as if little could be done. The speaker suggested that one of the swimming pools adjacent to the town could be made more popular, especially if the local bus proprietors could be persuaded to run cheap excursions to the pool. He believed that aquatic enthusiasts would erect dressing sheds. /Mr J. W. Silcock said that baths, were urgently needed. Few children were learning to swim these.days, and people objected to them going away to deep water without being under proper control. He thought that a small committee should be set up to discuss ways and means.

Mr E. W. Porritt detailed the arrangements that had been .made to provide bathis some years ago, when a poll to raise the money was taken and defeated by the ratepayers,. Mr H. J. Hare said that he would do all he could, .to assist the project, but he foresaw difficulties in raising the necessary finance. Mr Cassrels thought that possibly the baths could be erected as a war memorial.

Mr Silcock said He was, afraid people would not subscribe willingly to that form of war memorial, because the public would be charged admission.

Mr Porritt suggested that gates to the baths of appropriate design could form the memorial.

Mr Pascoe pointed out that the children of the town were being deprived to- a large extent of a necessary part of their education. If the baths were erected swimming would become a compulsory subject in the school curriculum, and a capitation allowance for each child receiving instruction at the baths would be paid, he believed, by the Education Department. He moved that a sub-committee comprising . the president, secretary, Messrs Silcock, Pascoe, and Hare. be set up to obtain information and estimates from other towns, and bring down a report for consideration at the next meeting.