The Editor

Dear Sir,

I have been a resident and member of this community for my entire life.

As a child I remember the time and effort and organisation put in by the people who lived here to build the Mittagong swimming pool.

I helped collect the rocks for the archway to that pool.

We saw the need for a pool in our area and through our collective efforts we achieved our goal.

The pool has given generations of children the chance to learn to swim, play and compete in various competitions.

It has given families a place to spend quality time with each other, swimming and picnicking.

It has given local schools the opportunity to have swimming lessons and carnivals without having to catch buses to other venues thus making it more accessible financially for all families and it has provided a location for the swimming club and water polo teams.

It provides a place to train or just to keep fit or play and it gives us a local place for our children to go in a safe and entertaining environment.

The Mittagong pool is the most beautiful public pool in the area and holds quite some historical value.

The Mittagong pool belongs to the community not the council.

The community built it to fulfil a demand and need of the local population and that need is as relevant today, if not more so, as it was when the pool was opened.

We, the community, provided the pool so the people local to Mittagong would not have to travel to other areas to use a pool for the myriad of purposes that it is put to.

I am sure that having the use of a local pool has helped thousands of children, over the years, to learn to swim thus providing them with safety in the water and an enormous amount of pleasure.

Last swimming season, when Bowral pool was closed, a number of children missed out having swimming lessons given by the Department of Sport and Recreation because there were not enough spaces to take the overflow from Bowral in the other pools in the area.