Cape Town opens 40 pools daily for the school holidays as five stay shut

Cape Town’s public swimming pools open daily from 23 September to 5 October for the September school holidays, most of them running from 10am to 5pm, the City of Cape Town said in a statement issued on Saturday, 19 September. As CapeTown ETC reported on 20 September, the extended hours are meant to give residents and visitors somewhere to swim and get outdoors while schools are closed and the weather warms.

The arrangement is not the whole network. Five facilities stay shut through the break.

The five pools that will not open

Westridge, Bellville Central, Mnandi and Athlone swimming pools are closed for major maintenance and improvement work. The City says each will go through quality assessments and safety checks once the work is finished, and that they will reopen on a phased basis. No reopening dates have been confirmed for any of the four.

Vulindela Swimming Pool is on a different track. It stays closed for the entire summer season while plans for its redesign and redevelopment are considered.

For anyone who normally swims at those five, the holiday means travelling to another pool or going without. Westridge and Mnandi serve Mitchells Plain and the deep south, Bellville Central serves the northern suburbs, Athlone serves the inner Cape Flats, and Vulindela serves Khayelitsha. Those are the areas where a municipal pool is often the only place a child has to swim, and where a summer closure is felt hardest.

What happens after 5 October

The daily holiday schedule ends on 5 October. From 6 October, public pools move to reduced hours until 1 December. In that window they open from 1pm to 5pm on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and from 10am to 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

The practical effect lands on weekday mornings. A parent hoping to take a younger child for a morning swim before the afternoon heat, or a pensioner who prefers to swim early, will find the gates shut until 1pm. From 1 December the summer and festive-season timetable takes over.

The City’s Recreation and Parks Department is preparing for that busier period and is busy making seasonal lifeguard appointments.

What the City says

Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health, Councillor Francine Higham, said the pools are part of the city’s community recreation infrastructure. “Our public swimming pools are important community spaces where families and young people can get active, cool off and enjoy time together,” she said.

Higham also pointed to the ongoing investment in upgrades, repairs and maintenance across the pool network. That is the reason the four closed facilities are shut, and it is the reason the City gives for the phased reopening.

The City has reminded visitors to follow pool rules, listen to lifeguards, and keep children supervised at all times.

What it costs to keep a pool open

A municipal pool is not a free facility. It carries filtration plant, chemical dosing, water treatment, cleaning, security and lifeguard cover, and the water itself is metered. That is why a pool closed for repairs is a real cost avoided and a real service lost at the same time, and why the City staggers reopenings rather than opening a facility before its safety checks are done.

It is also why the holiday schedule is the busiest stretch of the year for the pools that are open. In the first week of October, with schools out and daytime temperatures climbing, the open facilities will carry the demand of the closed ones as well as their own.

The City has not said how many people it expects across the network over the two weeks, or how many seasonal lifeguards it is appointing.

What to know before you go

Most pools open at 10am and close at 5pm every day from 23 September to 5 October. Westridge, Bellville Central, Mnandi, Athlone and Vulindela are closed. Reopening dates for the four maintenance pools have not been announced. From 6 October, weekday swimming at open pools starts at 1pm.

The next dated step is 5 October, when the daily holiday hours end and the reduced timetable begins.

Source: CapeTown ETC, Cape Town pools open for September school holidays, 20 September.