Council & Business
2 April, 2026
Council extends pool contract to 2029
Unified Community Sports and Leisure’s contract to manage the shire’s pools has been extended until 2029 for over $2 million.
Central Goldfields Shire Council voted to extend the contract at the March council meeting for a further three years, until June 30 2029, for $2,281,945.45.
The contract, which commenced in 2016, provides the option for council to extend the term up to five years twice concluding in June 2031.
Council officers recommended to extend the contract three years due to constrained market conditions and uncertainty surrounding the Maryborough Outdoor Pool’s redevelopment.
They said that retendering the contract would expose council to increased financial, operational, and governance risks.
Furthermore, they said deferring any procurement process allowed them to prepare a fit-for-purpose agreement that reflected the needs of a reopened Maryborough Outdoor Pool.
There was also an expectation that, without the full facility profile, the contract’s attractiveness to prospective operators would be reduced in an environment where competition is already limited.
While councillor Grace La Vella acknowledged a “community interest” in seeing the contract retendered she said now wasn’t a good time.
“Transparency and testing the market are important principles and, in many cases, I’d support that approach. However, timing is everything and in this case I do not believe now is the right time to go out to tender,” she said.
“I also think it’s important to recognise that council’s operating expenditure for leisure services is currently significantly lower than that of comparable councils. That tells us we are already operating in a relatively efficient space and there is no immediate financial pressure forcing us to test the market right now.
“Going to tender would bring very real and immediate costs. We’re talking about the resources required to redevelop specifications, under-take legal and probity processes, run internal evaluations, and potentially manage a transition to a new operator. These costs, both financial and organisational, should not be underestimated. Particularly in a time when council is managing broader financial constraints.”
Council first approved a 12-month extension to the contract in 2021 to allow time for a review of how aquatic and leisure services were delivered.
Otium Planning Group was engaged to assess the various management models available to council and concluded “the external contractor model provided the most financially efficient and lowest‐risk option for council”.
The reasoning for their first five-year extension in 2022, however, echoes that of council’s most recent extension.
This extension was based off a market test which identified low industry appetite for aquatic management contracts driven by labor shortages, rising operation costs, the impact of COVID-19, and anticipated works at the time.
Cr La Vella said council’s decision to extend the contract again was their most “responsible and practical course”.
“That gives us flexibility and that will give us the right balance going into the next few years,” she said.
Councillor Gerard Murphy left the chamber due to a conflict of interest as an owner of Unified Community Sports and Leisure.