Construction will begin next year on a 50-metre indoor pool in the Stromlo Forest Park, the ACT Government has announced.
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The $33 million pool, which had long been lobbied for by the Weston Creek and Molonglo communities, will be the watershed in the park's evolution into a vibrant sport and recreation precinct, ACT Sport and Recreation Minister Yvette Berry said.
The pool, which is expected to be completed in 2019, is one of a suite of additions outlined for the park in its new master plan, published on Thursday.
The Stromlo pool is the first project to receive funding in the upcoming ACT budget, but accommodation, an enclosed oval, district playing fields and a 12 kilometre road cycling circuit are also on the cards.
Ms Berry said seven written submissions and 744 online responses had been received in response to the draft master plan, first published in December.
She said early planning was underway to determine what the facility would offer.
"The design will include the capacity for possible expansion and additional features to be added over time as the suburbs surrounding the park continue to grow, and as funding is available," she said.
The accommodation could provide a low-cost place for people who use the park to stay, including school and sporting groups, and is envisaged as a series of low-rise self-contained cabins.
The government has also reinstated the equestrian event campground proposed in the 2010 master plan.
It includes provisions for more parking and amenities around new playing fields to be built, to alleviate congestion on current sporting fields in Weston Creek and the Molonglo Valley.
The idea of a pool at Stromlo had been discussed for several years.
In 2012, the ACT government announced plans for the pool in a $45 million cash shower for Weston Creek ahead of that year's territory election.
Construction had been flagged to begin in 2016 and complete by 2018.
Weston Creek Community Council chairman Tom Anderson said the funding commitment was welcome, but the group would "wait and see" what happened with the territory election in October.
"We've been trying for a pool for a long time now and even though it's not technically in Weston Creek, it will feel like it's a part of Weston Creek," he said.
The council also hopes the pool will come with the promise of public transport to the area, so people without cars can access it.
"We've got a mixed population in Weston Creek, we've got a lot of young children here and the schools are full so the pool will be welcome for people learning to swim. A lot of older people will use it as well for exercise and rehabilitation so it'll be good for the breadth of the population of Weston Creek," Mr Anderson said.
