problems for commonwealth games pool

With under five months to go before the opening of the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the Melbourne Sport and Aquatic Centre pool which will host the swimming competition is suffering from 12 water leaks. The leaks are believed to be a result of faults in the rubber membrane of the tank and the pool is currently empty pending repairs. Justin Madden, the Commonwealth Games minister for the Victorian State Government, indicated that the leaks would not add to the construction budget for the facility as they are minor in nature and the prefabricated pool tank is still under its manufacturer’s warranty.
This is the second major problem to strike the venue in the past four months. In July it was discovered that a 70-year-old gum tree which was though to lie outside the footprint of the pool’s main temporary stand was in fact within the building line. With the removal of mature trees at the start of construction causing controversy in Melbourne, the decision was taken to leave the tree in place; “We are committed to retaining the 70-year-old gum tree because the gum tree has been there a lot longer” a spokesman for Mr Madden said at the time.
That decision caused delay in the construction of the stand, which will provide an additional 7000 seats during the competition, and an extra A$400,000 in redesign and construction costs. This was in addition to an earlier blow out of $8million as a result of contractor claims and design changes which pushed the construction budget out to A$59.5million.
The government spokesman confirmed however that the seating capacity of the facility would be unaffected by the latest changes. There was no suggestion that the pool would not be ready for the games, for which the swimming competition is sold out.