Invariably in deficit, public swimming pools weigh down the accounts of municipalities, and these complex and expensive equipment should be managed by intermunicipal authorities, whose territory corresponds to the living area of ??users, estimates the Court of Auditors on Wednesday. The Court controlled the management of “more than 100 swimming pools and aquatic centers” in 69 local authorities and groups of municipalities bringing together 6 million inhabitants, reports Liberation.
The Court points out that with an average construction cost of 25 million euros, “high operating costs” and revenues “moderated by the exercise of public service missions” (reception of schoolchildren, associations, attractive prices ), the management of such equipment “systematically leads to a significant deficit”. However, in “the majority of the operations examined”, the bill rises from the moment of construction, with the cost often underestimated and the execution sometimes accompanied by a “drift”, due to “weak technical and financial skills” mobilized by the municipalities.
In addition, none of the equipment examined “shows a balanced or surplus operating result”: the average level of deficit of the pools inspected is 640,000 euros per year. This “structural and permanent” operating deficit should lead “owner communities to better adapt the offer to the demands of the population, so as to reduce the amount of their support”, and also to transfer the management of their swimming pool to the intercommunality.
“The lifespan of a swimming pool is thirty to thirty-five years. We can have heavy rehabilitations, which give life extensions of ten or fifteen years, but there, the park is ultra-dilapidated, “explained Basile Gazeaud, equipment manager at the French Swimming Federation (FFN), daily. . The federation estimates that 600 swimming pools in the tricolor park are obsolete.
