WELCOME

Welcome to the website of Friends of Blackheath Pool & Memorial Park.

FoBP&MP meets regularly to discuss any & all matters concerning the Pool, and we feedback our ideas & deliberations to elected Councillors & BMCC Aquatic Centre management. Some FoBP&MP core members were intimately involved the Save the Pool campaign (2003/4), and on the advisory group to Council during Pool reconstruction (2004-6).

FoBP&MP views Blackheath Pool as a vital community asset, a keystone of Blackheath community life – historically, now and into the future. It’s a place where our community meets in summer – it’s our town-square!

In 1921 citizens of Blackheath raised £1,000 to finance work on establishing the Memorial Park. The Pool was converted from a railway dam by volunteers in the 1920s & 30s: “During working bees on Wednesday afternoons and weekends the dams are cleaned out, graded to the necessary depths & the bottoms gravelled. Old railway sleepers are painted white and placed to define the embankments.” The grand opening was held during the Christmas holiday in 1931 [for more detail see Historical TIMELINE ].

In 2003 the Pool was closed by Council when structural integrity failed & chlorinated water began leaking into Popes Glen Creek. On Australia Day 2004 concerned citizens organised the Blackheath Pool Party (without a Pool), to protest the closure – 500 people gathered in the Park for a community photo. The next day Council voted unanimously to reconstruct the Olympic Pool, install a new water treatment system and shade cover over the toddlers pool [for photo & more detail see Four Years Ago].

The refurbished Pool complex opened on 25th February 2006.
So the 2008/09 season is the third full season of the new Pool.

Please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions about Blackheath Pool on this website.

Thank you for your interest, Friends of Blackheath Pool & Memorial Park.