The Hawke’s Bay Regional Aquatic Centre Powered by PAK’nSAVE Hastings has celebrated its first year in operation with an estimated half a million user visits, exceeding all expectations.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Aquatic Centre operations manager Nate Manu said it was particularly pleasing to see higher than expected casual pool use; the explosion of participation in Water Polo - a new sport introduced to the region and the huge numbers in the delivery of learn to swim and water safety programmes.

“We are thrilled by the use of the facility which has been incredibly popular for the public with over 40,000 casual swimmers having used the 50 metre pool, which also converts to two 25m pools, as well as the additional 25 metre learners pool over the last year.

“We’ve also completed over 75,000 swim school lessons and a further 1500 young children have had school swim lessons and water safety training thanks to generous funding support from Royston Health trust and Hurford Parker, that importantly will save lives."
 

The Hawke’s Bay Water Polo Club has been a huge success with over 600 children and adults participating in regular competitions and the centre hosted a test series between New Zealand and Australia Under 20 teams. The centre will also host the New Zealand Water Polo Masters in November.

“Water polo needs a deep pool, which the region didn’t previously have, we now can play up to 4 games at a time and the sport is growing rapidly."

The centre has also hosted three national New Zealand Swimming events with back-to-back New Zealand Swimming Championships and New Zealand Age Group Swimming Championships also confirmed for April 2024.

Nate says the aquatic centre team has learned a lot during the year and admits a setback was the recent New Zealand Short Course Championships which was marred by technical equipment failure.

However, the problem has been resolved and processes are now in place to minimise this risk into the future.

“We still have the confidence of swimming New Zealand to host large scale events and importantly local swimming clubs such as Sundevils, which has also grown its member base.”