THE continued closure of the MidCoast district swimming pools continues to cause significant local frustration as the weather warms up, particularly with reports of unauthorised swimming occurring while the pools are seemingly locked down.

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Last week, the Council’s Manager of Community Spaces, Recreation and Trades, Dan Aldridge, advised that, “While our district swimming pools at Tea Gardens, Stroud, Bulahdelah, Nabiac, and Krambach remain closed to casual visitors for now, groups who have completed a COVID-19 safety plan and have current public liability insurance are able to book these facilities.

“The above swimming pools are unsupervised and with full public opening we would be unable to satisfy all of the NSW COVID-19 safety plan requirements for pools, which require frequent cleaning, supervision of numbers using the pool, and collection of personal details of every person entering the facility.”

Exasperated locals are organising a petition to Council seeking to have specific timeframes with supervision to enable access to the pools, especially for those with health and mobility issues.

Graffiti is on the increase, with several Myall Coast facilities including Longworth Park, Tea Gardens Lions Club Lookout, numerous public toilets, and local skate parks, being vandalised in recent weeks.

Anyone can photograph and report acts of graffiti vandalism against local parks, community facilities and private property.

The NSW Graffiti Hotline refers reports of graffiti to the MidCoast Council, for clean-up and removal, call 1800 707 125 (free call) during work hours.

Still on Council:

• Council offices will close for Christmas from 2pm on 24 December.
• Most office services, including the Tea Gardens Service Centre, will recommence 4 January 2021.
• Waste collections will operate as normal over Christmas but put your bins out the night before as collection times may vary.
• All Visitor Information Centres will be closed on Christmas Day.
• The Council will be transitioning to a new Information technology system and web services will be unavailable from 7 to 11 December.
• The 2020 MidCoast Annual Report is now available online with a foreword by Mayor David West who describes the report as, “a snapshot of what has been a challenging year, however, staff have been determined to continue to deliver services and programs for the community.”

To space, and locals reported online about seeing a “huge black disc with a red and green fire trail” streaking across the sky at around 3am on 1 December.

What the disc was remains a mystery, however it was timely as local science fiction author, Greg Mutton, released the anticipated final book of his trilogy, Chronicle of the 12th Realm.

The epic is described as “’a rollicking tale full of interesting characters (human and alien), a dastardly universe-wide plot and a family feud. An ingenious mix of sci fi adventure and space opera.”

The book (or grab all three in a gift bag) is for sale at the Tea Garden Post Office, Hawks Nest Newsagency and at Harry Hartog stores.

Still on lights, the Tea Gardens – Hawks Nest Christmas Light Spectacular competition is now open to all residents and businesses until 15 December.

Lots of time to enter with the winners announced Christmas Eve.

So light up to score $300 and to be the inaugural winner of what is set to be an awesome annual Christmas competition.

By Sandra MURRAY