Finally - after years of disputed designs, scandal and lurid sexual escapades - work is soon to start on the conversion of Wollongong's bathers pavilion.
Whatever emerges will surely please some people - and be treated with horror by others. So many factors converge that it will be impossible to reach common ground.
The first basic was whether the old building was worth saving. It belonged to a past era and it was in incredibly poor shape. Perhaps an option would have been to put the bulldozer through it - and start from scratch with a new design that would fit into the twenty-first century.
Nostalgia won out. For some reason many felt that this ghost from the past was worth saving, and so we will have the difficult task of maintaining it's ancient image, while tacking on some sort of restaurant and delivering all the goodies that modern beach users demand.
The main objections to the project remain unanswered. There is still a problem with access for rubbish removal and parking is a perennial problem near any beach.
Hopefully, the calamities that have plagued the bathers pavilion have been laid to rest - but what finally emerges will have cost the city a mint of money. Let us hope the majority of people give it the nod !
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