Greater Vernon’s aquatic centre will be the focus of a long-term review.
The City of Vernon will soon begin the process of developing a recreation master plan and that will include current facility usage and whether the existing pool meets public needs.
“Our legal capacity in the swimming pool is 603 swimmers and our largest swim in 2015 was 461 swimmers for Family Day,” said Doug Ross, director of recreation services.
“We had more than 250 swimmers in the pool on only six other occasions.”
In 2015, there were about 200,000 user visits to the pool: 118,503 public swim user visits, 63,000 program participant user visits and 15,000 Kokanee Swim Club user visits.
The master plan will also address program requirements, as many popular aquatic programs had long waitlists for preferred timeslots, usually after school and work hours. Additionally, some user groups were not able to book the pool during peak usage times.
“There is a trend in aquatics occurring that indicates increased demand on programmed structured activities and a decrease in public swimming,” said Ross.
“This change in use is creating more demand for swimming lessons, swim clubs, aqua fitness programs and other aquatic programs.”