Pool vandalised

LIFEGUARDS were left to clean up the destruction at Corrimal Pool recently, when vandals hit the facility not once, but twice over the same weekend.

Objects ranging from bins to beer cans were hurled into the main pool as the intruders ran amok.

"Anything that wasn't tied down was thrown into the water," Corrimal Swim Club president David

Swan said.

"They even tore the clock off the wall and chucked that in."

The swimming club's clubhouse was also broken into and the pool's cleaning equipment damaged in the rampage.

But Mr Swan said he was most disturbed by the broken glass found at the bottom the toddlers' pool.

"I'm told that the lifeguards had to empty the pool to make sure all the pieces were removed," he said.

The vandalism over the Saturday night (November 25) forced Wollongong City Council to close the pool until after lunch on the following Sunday.

Tragically, vandals struck the facility again that night, damaging the replacement cleaning equipment that had arrived only hours earlier.

The council's aquatic services coordinator Peter Wilson said the clean-up bill reached up to $4000, though repairs were yet to be made to the cleaning equipment.

He said an automatic pool cleaner could cost about $27,000 to replace.

"That's money that council could be spending elsewhere, but unfortunately we have to continually spend it repairing community assets," Mr Wilson said.

"There's a ratbag minority that are ruining it for the majority."

Mr Wilson urged residents to report any instances of vandalism to the police.