Beach pool lobbying

‘It would be the key to getting all the beach pool movement happening from Albany to Geraldton,’ Scarborough beach pool proponent Leisha Jack said.

Ms Jack is lobbying for an Olympic-sized beach pool at the State Government’s Scarborough beachfront redevelopment.

She said she was confident it would be considered, adding that a rock pool proposal for Cottesloe could make it the first in WA.

Merriwa resident Lewis Flood has spent three years pushing for a rectangular 50m long, 30m wide ocean pool at Quinns Beach, about 30km north of Cottesloe.

‘With this ocean pool design there’s no maintenance and it would only need someone coming down each day to see if anything had washed in,’ Mr Flood said.

Ms Jack and Mr Flood are taking inspiration from the 75m-long, 25m-wide, rock pool proposed for the north side of Cottesloe groyne.

The $1.65 million pool was suggested by Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club member Tom Locke after Ken Crew was killed by a great white shark in North Cottesloe in 2000.

Mr Locke recently had the design successfully tested for regularly flushing by waves, lack of winter weed congestion and erosion, by the Centre for Water Research at the University of WA.

But opposition to the proposal has included some daily swimmers fearing the pool could take up beach and water space, and some surfers are concerned it could alter their winter surf break at the end of the groyne.