Ask Canberrans why they're angry about Big Splash and you'll hear about slides, summers and school holidays.
But this fight is about more than nostalgia, as some would like to claim. It's about whether Canberra treats places like pools as social infrastructure - shared spaces that hold community together - or leaves them at the whims of whichever private leaseholder happens to hold the paper.
Consider what has happened. Big Splash has been closed since the beginning of 2024.
In April this year, Access Canberra decided against terminating the lease despite years of disrepair. I obtained documents under freedom of information which showed multiple breaches of warning letters, orders and rectification notices, yet not a single fine issued against the leaseholders in response.
The site is Crown-leased land in a city where land is scarce. The lease permits an aquatic facility, an indoor sports facility or an unlicensed family restaurant.
And the owner has said it won't run a public pool but will comply by opening a "restaurant" (do they just mean a food truck?)
The government, meanwhile, with the knowledge that the park won't reopen this summer, has commissioned an "options analysis" of the site's future - an analysis on someone else's land, given that Access Canberra has not terminated the lease.
The property was listed for sale in June, but no acceptable offer was received. For Canberrans, this means a third summer in a row without a water park.
Our summers are getting hotter. In January this year, Dickson Pool hit capacity by 11:30am and had to run one-in, one-out, on a day Canberra reached 41.1 degrees.
It was the seventh straight day of a heatwave. When it's that hot, a pool is where people go to cool off. It's where you go if you don't have a backyard pool or a car to reach the Murrumbidgee or the South Coast.
The people who can least afford to escape the heat are the ones a community pool exists to serve, and it's the kind of common space that keeps cities safe and connected.
Big Splash isn't unique. Phillip Pool struggled for years and missed several summers, with some repairs never completed.
The ACT government suddenly rezoned that site and Geocon now has approval for 286 units and a new 25-metre pool, with the 50-metre pool and ice rink slated for later demolition. The Auditor-General criticised this rezoning decision; the Integrity Commission is now looking into the development.
Each case looks different, but the pattern is the same: a public good sitting on land that a for-profit private developer controls.
The numbers show how little room there is to lose any of this. Canberra has about 45,000 people per public pool, which ranks fourth among capital cities, behind Darwin, Hobart and Brisbane. That's the ceiling, and it's shrinking.
The Belconnen Community Council notes that one in four Canberrans live in Belconnen, yet none of the ACT's outdoor pools are in the district.
Every summer, people from across the city cram into Manuka, Civic and Dickson.
The ACT government keeps pretending that public pools aren't the responsibility of governments but should be left to private developers. But the truth is, here in Canberra, most of our pools are partially subsidised by ACT government. And those which aren't subsidised are failing.
Councils across Australia routinely operate or subsidise pools - pretending otherwise will leave us with fewer options for shared spaces to cool down in a hotter, drier future.
For young people, when temperatures soar, they have few places to go that aren't a shopping mall. Pools and recreation centres fill that gap: they're affordable, safe, social and active.
Canberra is the bush capital, and that's why we love it. But a bush capital can also be a city with great pools, where kids learn to swim, young people hang out and families cool off without needing a backyard.
Crown leases should serve the community, and looking at the Big Splash site specifically, Canberrans have said time and time again what they want: a pool and a water park. It's time Access Canberra showed it has teeth.
Please, issue fines or take whatever steps you need to take back the site. Then you can do the homework on what comes next.
