TAURANGA SWIMMING BATHS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14929, 17 March 1949, Page 2

TAURANGA SWIMMING BATHS

Sir, —Surely events within a very short pericd should be sufficient to start the residents of Tauranga agitating for prompt action on behalf of the Borough Council towards getting a swimming bath in thi's towr, —not only one on paper—but one in actual fact.

Firstly there have been several bad drowning accidents' in New Zealand. Parents must feel that given a worthwhile swimming bath., here in our warm climate, it is inconceivable that any child should not swim efficiently at an early age. more particularly as we have a strong swimming . club, working under almost impossible conditions. The writer has had the experience of enquiring regarding coaching for a chi'ld and getting every co-opera-tion from the club, only to find that repeated appointments were useless because of rough weather or bad tides!

Secondly, the recent visit to this area of Misses Ngaire Lane, Betty Casey and Hazel Forsythe—all New Zealand champions and record holders —must make us look askance when our swimming club and school children have to charter buses and travel to Te Puke to get a glimpse of first-class swimmers, including our Olympic representative. As a third incentive I should ask any parent or member of our council to walk along the beach in the vicinity of Sixth Avenue on a very hot day and to notice the smell, presumably from bad drainage. I defy anyone to say it is an ideal place for our school children to attempt to learn swimmi'ng, more particularly as each day's pape: still shows signs of an epidemic in this country. _ ' In our primary school, with over 900 children attending, many are keen to learn life saving, but it cannot be taught, efficiently under existing conditions. Yet in 1948 more people were drowned than were killed on the road, and since Christmas Eve, 1948, forty-six drowning fatalities have occurred. I understand that members of the swimming club have waited upon the council on several occasions trying to insist that the need for baths is' urgent—and wl'lh our tourist traffic, surely very desirable to anyone with any civic pride—but as nothing has eventuated they are now attempting to get some progress by their own efforts, and that the Mayor has commended them for their initiative. Surely it would be better that the necessary ini'tiative should come from the obvious source—our Borough Council? —I am, etc., M.B.