The Beagle Editor, Your readers might be interested in a recent letter I have penned to the Mayor G’day, Madame Mayor,
Would you please explain in your next column to the media why the $6.5 million extra quoted from Odium's assessment of the costs associated with replacing the 25 metre pool in their concept plan with a (more sensible) Olympic sized 50 metre pool includes the provision of a relocatable boom that would allow the pool to be divided into two 25 metre pools. This extra feature distorts the cost comparison and simply is not needed.
It has often been said that plans can be drawn up to allow for future expansion of the pool and the auditorium (also considered to be under-size) - if that's the case, why can't the brief for the architects' tender submissions, hopefully publicly available, include these aspects not only as future expansion possibilities but as alternate costing analyses for inclusion up front when the expense will be far more affordable than if it were attempted later on?
Jeff de Jager
Coila As we know the devil’s in the detail and if you read the detail of what Odium used to make up the $5.5 million difference, they have included a movable boom, in fact they mention the actual length of the “50 metre” pool would be more than 50 metres, the extra being the width of the boom which when taken to one end leaves the nett pool length at 50 metres. Look at the YouTube video below and you will see.
As well as the additional length, there are impacts on the depth of the section of the pool where the boom would operate but they are secondary to it being there at all. As an analogy, what in effect this means is that instead of quoting for a 50 seater bus vs a 25 seater one, they have priced a mobile home i.e. one with lots more features than needed.
