Warilla Pool opens on 28 November this summer, nearly four weeks later than last year and on shorter hours. A draft review asks whether it has a future

When you can swim there

Warilla Pool, on Benaud Crescent, is closed for winter. Its council page, last updated on 22 September 2026, sets out the season below; it adds that the pool could be available on non-operating days for bookings and carnivals. Oak Flats Pool is open all year, and the council's 24 September release says it is running 6am to 7pm daily for spring.

Sources: the council's Warilla Pool page, read 7 October 2026, and the same page as archived by the Internet Archive on 14 January 2026. Last season's page also listed public holidays at 10am to 6pm and Christmas Day closed; this season's page does not yet list holiday hours.

That is close to, though not identical with, what the draft review labels its Preferred 2026/27 Trial to Align with Customer Demand at Warilla Pool: a 1 December start, daily in December and January, Thursday to Sunday in February and March, 9am to 5pm, closed April to November. The listed season starts three days earlier, on 28 November.

Why the review wants less of it

The draft review, dated June 2026 and endorsed by the council for public exhibition at its 25 August meeting, according to the council's 27 August release, compares the city's four pools. Its numbers for 2024-25:

Source: draft Aquatic Facilities Review, executive summary, pages ii to iii. The review gives the national median subsidy for outdoor pools as $6.29 a visit in 2023-24. Subsidy is the operating cost left after entry fees.

Warilla is the outlier on every line. For 2024-25 the review records revenue of $39,093.04 against expenditure of $370,351.00, an operating deficit of $331,257.96; divided by 14,754 visits, that is the $22.45 (page 117). It was open five months, which the review works out at about 105 visits a day. The review's own summary of the current hours is blunt: with that subsidy, they are not financially sustainable (page 139). It puts the low numbers down to free swimming close by, at Lake Illawarra, the beaches and the ocean pool; to the lack of heating, a splash pad or a kiosk; and to having no affiliated swimming club (page 93). It also records that 86 per cent of 2024-25 visitors came from 9am onwards (page 39), which is the case for dropping the 6am start.

The money involved is modest by council standards. The review prices last season's 6am to 6pm, five-month operation at about $340,000 a year net, and its preferred trial at about $240,000, a saving of about $100,000. Opening for the peak only, December and January, would cost about $170,000 (pages 93 and 96).

What councillors asked for, and what the review answered

The review quotes a council resolution of 28 October 2025 asking staff for an urgent report on the cost of extending the Albion Park and Warilla seasons in 2026, to run from the September school holidays to the April ones (page 92). It costed three ways of doing that at Warilla, from about $20,000 to about $132,000 a year extra, and then advised against all of them: extending the season at Warilla Pool is not recommended as the demand does not support this option (page 95).

Albion Park got the opposite answer. The review recommends trialling a longer season there, and the council's Albion Park Pool page now lists it open from 26 September 2026 to Anzac Day 2027. The people who answered the council's own survey wanted the same: extending the open season was the most supported idea among 339 responses from 323 contributors in June and July, according to the engagement report. That survey was self-selected, and about three in four respondents said they used Oak Flats.

The long-term question

The pool opened in 1976. The review says it will reach the end of its useful life within 10 to 15 years, and that like-for-like renewal would cost the council in the order of $4.8 million over that time while extending its life by only 15 to 20 years (pages 117 and 118). It sets out two long-term options, both described as high-level concepts only:

• Renovate and modernise: widen the 50-metre pool from seven lanes to ten, add solar heating, a splash pad, shade, a kiosk and fitness stations. The comparable project it cites, a Queensland aquatic centre, was valued at $13 million.
• Close the pool and make the site a park: demolition, a playground, a BMX pump track, fitness circuits and barbecues, linked to the basketball courts and dog exercise area next door. No cost is given. The review warns that a closed site risks becoming underused, with more vandalism and anti-social behaviour, if it is not kept active.

Its priority recommendation for Warilla combines the two timescales: service changes, with operations from 9am to 5pm, and, on a horizon of more than ten years, consideration of repurposing the site for open space and playgrounds (page v). It recommends detailed cost-benefit work and community consultation before any infrastructure decision. It also says, plainly, Despite its low utilisation, Warilla Pool provides a safe aquatic opportunity within an area of lower socio-economic advantage. (page 93).

The council's Let's Chat page says the draft was on exhibition until 27 September 2026, and on Warilla specifically: No decisions have been made about its future. Its timeline shows the review as next under evaluation, then adoption, with no date for either.

What we could not see

The council's meetings page, read on 7 October 2026, lists no business papers or minutes newer than 2021, so we have not read the report that went to the 25 August meeting, the resolution or the vote, or whether councillors resolved on Warilla's 2026-27 hours at that meeting or another. What is on the record is the council's release saying it endorsed the draft for exhibition, and the pool page carrying the new season. The next ordinary meeting is Tuesday 27 October. When the final review is published or goes to council, we will read it and report what changed for Warilla.

Our read

This is opinion, built on the documents above. On the review's own figures, trimming Warilla's hours is easy to defend: a pool costing $22.45 a visit, more than three times the national median for outdoor pools, with 86 per cent of its visitors arriving from 9am onwards, has little case for a 6am start. The review is also honest about the cost of that logic, naming the suburb's disadvantage in the same breath.

The sequence is what deserves attention. The pool page carrying the new season was last updated on 22 September, five days before the exhibition of the review that recommends it closed. That may have been settled properly at a meeting we cannot read, and the trial is a single season. But a shorter season will also lower this season's attendance count, and attendance is the number the review uses to judge the pool's future. When the final review comes back, the fair test of the trial is visits per hour open, not visits per season.

Sources

1. Shellharbour City Council, Aquatic Facilities Review, draft, dated June 2026, 201 pages, read 7 October 2026: the visit, subsidy, deficit and works figures, the current and option operating costs, the preferred 2026-27 trial, the 28 October 2025 resolution, the long-term options and the priority recommendations (pages ii to v, 39 to 40, 92 to 97, 117 to 119 and 139).
2. Shellharbour City Council, Warilla Pool, page last updated 22 September 2026, read 7 October 2026: the 2026-27 season dates, days and hours.
3. Internet Archive, Warilla Pool page as captured 14 January 2026, read 7 October 2026: the 2025-26 season of 1 November 2025 to 29 March 2026, 6am to 6pm, seven days.
4. Shellharbour City Council, Making a splash with the future of our pools, Let's Chat Shellharbour, read 7 October 2026: the exhibition close of 27 September 2026, the statement that no decisions have been made about Warilla's future, and the project timeline.
5. Shellharbour City Council, Aquatics Review Engagement Report, June to July 2026, 13 pages, read 7 October 2026: the 339 responses from 323 contributors, the most supported idea, and the share using Oak Flats.
6. Shellharbour City Council, Planning for Shellharbour's Pools, media release, 27 August 2026, read 7 October 2026: the council's endorsement of the draft for exhibition.
7. Shellharbour City Council, Albion Park Pool page, read 7 October 2026, and Shellharbour welcomes the start of the 2026/27 swim season, media release, 24 September 2026: Albion Park's season to Anzac Day 2027 and Oak Flats' spring hours.
8. Shellharbour City Council, Council Meetings, read 7 October 2026: the next meeting on 27 October 2026 and the papers listed.

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