Budget burst: Leschenault Leisure Centre project to go $40,000 over budget after 8m crack found in pool

Upgrades to the Leschenault Leisure Centre’s swimming pool will spill over budget by almost $40,000 after a 8m-long crack was found in the pool’s concrete lining.

Shire of Harvey councillors voted at their January 24 meeting to approve more than $110,000 being spent to fix the crack in the floor of the 25m lap pool’s concrete shell, which will take the project over budget by at least $30,000.

According to council documents, the crack was identified after work started on removing tiles in October last year. It is believed to have been caused by a different rate of concrete shrinkage between thicker and thinner parts of the shell.

As part of the remedial work, shire officers were advised by consultants to layer the entire concrete shell in a waterproof membrane, which was approved prior to the budget changes being made by the council, to keep the project on schedule.

Repair works were last held on the pool in 2009.

The $110,473 repair bill is more than the $55,000 allocated in the project tender to dewatering and defect costs, with the project now expected to come $30,000 to $40,000 over budget once it is completed.

Costs for the project had already increased through contract variations.

Councillor Joe Capogreco said he wanted to make sure it would not become “a re-occurring event”.

“I’m not against spending the money but I want to make sure ... it is fixed correctly and we won’t have that crack reopening again, because looking at the report, it has happened more than once,” he said.

Community and lifestyle director Kirstie Davis said testing works on the completed remediation had come back as “sufficient”.

“The previous crack wasn’t fixed appropriately and so that was the original issue when we did pull the tiles up this time, and has caused a lot of problems over the last few years,” she said.

“There is a 10 to 15 years expectation that we get out of that from completing these works as well.”

Ms Davis said some pressure testing had also been completed on the shell and it had come back as “sufficient”.

“The way the pool was constructed originally ... it’s not to current day specifications, so it actually goes really deep really quickly and that causes a lot of pressure at the deep end of the pool,” she said.

“The crack that we did identify is not consistent with any crack that you would find in today’s standard (pool).”

The change to the pool work budget was approved unanimously.

Consultants engaged to conduct analysis on the issue expect there to not be any further “noticeable widening” of the current cracks as most of the concrete’s shrinkage had already occurred.