The past and future of local swimming pools

This article examines both recent policy to rationalise the provision of local public swimming pools, and the controversy that some closure or redevelopment plans have generated. Focusing on Victoria, the article analyses the cultural and political history of municipal pools, challenging a current policy narrative of local authority failure by highlighting earlier civic and higher government initiatives for pool building. Physical infrastructure has been little studied by scholars in the humanities and social sciences. With much of Australia's post-World War Two infrastructure reaching the end of its effective life in the first few decades of this century, the story of local pools illuminates a policy challenge with major social, political and environmental implications.