Heating issues at Balclutha's refurbished pool have left residents fuming and some parents have taken young children out of town to go swimming in warmer water.
Residents were left without swimming facilities for 18 months while the Balclutha Centennial Pool underwent a $4.2 million upgrade, but heating issues have plagued the pool since it reopened last September.
Several South Otago parents have contacted the Otago Daily Times with concerns on the water temperature.
One Balclutha woman, who did not want to be named, said she no longer took her 1-year-old daughter swimming in Balclutha, instead travelling to Moana Pool in Dunedin where the learner pool was 32degC.
''The Balclutha pool is just too cold for babies and toddlers that aren't mobile. The pool itself is a great facility, and a lot of people use it, but they need to get it right,'' she said.
Abby McCann said issues with the water temperature had left her feeling ''extremely upset and frustrated'' that she could not enjoy the pool with her young daughter.
''Our daughter is 13 months old and we had been unable to take her to the pool due to repeated reports of a freezing facility. We finally took her [last month]; after 15 minutes she was shivering and had to get out of the baby pool. The family changing room was so cold it was unbearable.''
Other parents said they or their friends now took their children to Gore or Dunedin for swimming.
Clutha District Council corporate services manager Alan Dickson said there had been issues with the pool's heating for the past six months, caused by the water heating system.
It was put in during the redesign, and the council was working with the contractor to solve the problems.
Mr Dickson said the council had received about ''half a dozen'' complaints from a mix of users, not just parents. He said the toddler pool was usually set around 30.5degC and the main pool at 28deg.
The council may add radiant heating to the four unheated parent changing rooms. The main changing rooms were heated.
The pool was closed at the end of February 2011, when mechanical problems with the boiler arose. It reopened to the public last September after eight months of delays during the facility's upgrade kept pushing out the project's finish date.
Dunedin company Lund South Ltd won the $3.5 million contract to upgrade the pool, a budget which was extended to $4.2 million, including the bulkhead and therapeutic pool, for which the community raised $170,000.
