Brisbane’s inner-north community are leading the charge in opposing QUT’s closure of the Kelvin Grove Fitness and Aquatic Centre. Set for permanent closure on Tuesday 1st of September, many students remain completely unaware that the 25-metre indoor swimming pool will be replaced by a high-purpose teaching, research, and gym facility.
150 people rallied outside the beloved community asset on Saturday 8th August, condemning QUT for its lack of transparency or consultation with the community, and calling for the pool to remain open. Local politicians Hon. Grace Grace, MP Jonty Bush, and Councillor Seal Chong Wah were also in attendance.
As of publication, a petition urging QUT to reverse their decision has received upwards of 1,700 online and written signatures.
Concerns follow that there are no viable alternatives for any of the fitness, mental health, or communal needs facing locals and nearby students. Despite the upcoming closure, Kelvin Grove’s gym facilities will remain open and the larger 50m indoor pool at Gardens Point will continue to operate. Construction on the new facility is expected to take approximately six months.
Users who have been advised to visit the Garden’s Point Pool instead have been left dismayed by a combination of travel barriers and parking costs. Despite impacts to members who primarily use the Kelvin Grove facilities, membership and payments will remain the same.
President of the QUT Guild’s Student Representative Council (SRC) Caleb McGiffin, says that he has been personally attending to the issue and holding meetings with QUT administration, but stated that it would be “improper” for the student union to use its resources campaigning for an issue that hasn’t been raised by students.
“Students make up a minority of users of the Kelvin Grove pool, and to this date, the vast, overwhelming majority of opposition to the closure and redevelopment has been raised by community members—a minority of whom are alumni, with the rest having no relation to the QUT student body,”
However, President McGiffin admitted that students’ interests were not appropriately consulted by the university.
“In my meeting with the university, I made my position clear that any major development such as this should be raised with the Guild, as is the general expectation, and should go through a process of student feedback. I raised this as a poor decision from the university – which has only worked to complicate the issue.”
McGiffin also noted that the proposed redevelopment is potentially beneficial to QUT students—whom the SRC represents.
Community group FLOAT (Friends of Local Aquatic Training) has arisen in response to news of the oncoming pool closure. FLOAT spokesperson Mike Goodman cites QUT’s lack of advertisement as the reason why students are not utilising the asset.
“The university says that the students aren’t using it. Well, we think it’s probably because a lot of the students don’t even know it’s there. It’s got really bad signage. We’ve also seen over the years that QUT hasn’t really done anything to try and build up the pool as far as a better use of the facility,” he said.
“From our perspective, what it seems is that they didn’t want to have the pool anymore. And they’re sort of just trying to justify their decision to do that.”
Mr Goodman visits the pool up to five times a week, first visiting because the heated resource would stay open during the Winter. Over time, he’s even taught migrants to swim there, joining a community that he fears may now “fall away.”
“There doesn’t seem to have been any consultation with students or with staff or very, very little when we met with QUT management. They basically said, look, it’s our asset we can do with it what we like,” he said.
“If they’re taking out a community facility, and a facility that would be available to the students, generally, and making it only available to a select few, well, that’s a trajectory that we don’t really support. Particularly, as we know that there are quite a number of other vacant spaces around the campus that could potentially be used for such a facility.”
QUT alumnus Sue Wighton and a group of women in their 70s have been swimming at the Kelvin Grove Pool twice a week for 13 years. Wighton questioned the rationale behind the closure and has struggled to contact QUT administration.
“Much of our effort to communicate with people has been met with either deafening silence or complicated issues,” she said.
“Staff at QUT and students are not game to speak out. They’re not game to give their opinion in case they lose their job. This says a lot to me about the culture of QUT, this lack of transparency. Whenever we try to do something, we get blocked.”
“So that’s the kind of thing we’re up against. There are people who are dead against this, but they can’t speak out. And I think that is a terrible thing, if that’s part of the culture of QUT.”
“The rationale behind that pool and that health hub was nothing to do with financial profit. It was to do with community engagement. And if they can take away a pool that was built with the purpose of community engagement, what else will they take away?” Miss Wighton said.
QUT’s formation of the indoor pool was funded by American philanthropist Chuck Steeney, who contributed $20 million into the health hub.
There are few other undercover pools in the inner northern suburbs. Heritage-listed Centenary Pool will permanently close to the public on August 30 and will be redeveloped for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics. It is expected to be closed for construction for several years.
The Brisbane City Council has not invested in brand new swimming facilities since 2017.
