Elisabeth Champion
With the opening just days away, Wulanda Recreation and Convention Centre has come under fire.
Local disability advocate Laurie Mann raised concerns with City of Mount Gambier about what he believed was a lack of disability access at the centre.
He said there were many issues with the access for people with disabilities such as missing tactile strips on ramps, uncompleted crossings and poor signage.
Mr Mann, who uses a mobility scooter, spoke with council staff about the issues last week.
Manager city infrastructure Barbara Cernovskis said the council had taken note of the issues raised by Mr Mann.
“I think that they are legitimate improvement suggestions that we can then go through, and we’ll put that into the mix of what we’re going to consider and able to consider as we pace our way forward,” she said.
“There were things like ripple strips to be included and there was a next level when it comes to the car parking with colour coding.
“These are things that we can look into for improvement moving forward.
“The design for Wulanda right from the start, and bearing in mind, it’s about four years ago that we started this design process and things do change, but we’ve tried to be as inclusive as we can be.
“Even with the designers, they’ve said in terms of their journey with this, it’s the most inclusive design they’ve come up with so far, which that’s really comforting to know, but have we got it all perfect? No. Because it’s always going to be difficult to achieve that, because we’ve got many things to consider as we move forward with these types of things.”
She said the community reference group, which helped to with the design of the centre along the way, did include a person with a disability, and said council had tried to be as inclusive as possible.
“The disability access has been thought of in so many different ways, but have we been able to put absolutely everything in, the answer to that is no, because it’s incredibly expensive.
“But it’s not all about the dollars, it’s about the whole of the community, and what we do include.
“Every aquatic offering has disabled access and the pool pod for the 50 metre pool is being installed, we’ve got the sensory room and the programme room.”
Despite the centre due to open on Friday, Ms Cernovskis said there were still some work to be completed.
“We’ve had project completion for separate proportion A, but in amongst all of that there’s still unfinished works and then we still have to go through the defect period,” she said.
“You’ll notice that there’s things that need to be finished, and it’ll be for the next 12 months, you’re still going to see activity around the site to be able to get it finalised and some correction points.
“The priority was really being able to get it finished and to a standard that we can get the community in, so that we can meet our promise to the community in terms of not missing another swimming season.”
The centre is open for a preview this weekend.
