Hilltops Council will issue a tender at the end of this month for restoration of Harden’s state-of-the-art hydrotherapy pool.

A facility that has sat idle since it was closed earlier this year It is missed by a number of local people whose conditions were helped by physiotherapy treatment there.

Made in the USA, the 14-year-old “HydroWorx” pool is the only one of its kind in Australia, and has proved costly to operate and maintain.

This was identified very early on in its life when technicians were flown in from overseas to service it.

The facility was passed on from the Kruger Trust to the Harden Shire Council and when the forced merger occurred, automatically transferred to Hilltops Council which means its future now lies in the hands of the majority Young held Council.

One way to secure its future going forward would be for the Kruger Trust to accept it back off Hilltops Council’s books.

A report received by the Hilltops Council at the time of amalgamation said the pool had a “sudden fail mechanism” which stops it automatically if any component fails and prevents it from being used until the fault is fixed.

Contacted on Tuesday, Hilltops Council said it could not provide further information at this stage, but confirmed a tender for restoring the pool to functionality would go out at the end of this month.

Why it has taken 6 months has not been explained as a large amount of human suffering has gone unanswered.

Until it closed in January treatment at the pool was supervised for seven years by Hilltops Physiotherapy, whose expertise helped many patients overcome illness and injury.

The pool’s floor goes up and down like a lift, meaning patients can walk or be wheeled onto it and be lowered in 30 seconds to any depth up to 1.8 metres The floor, which is cushioned and has good traction, doubles as a variable speed treadmill that can go from zero to nearly 14 kilometres per hour in small increments.

It can accommodate up to four people during treadmill workouts or therapy sessions.

It also has resistance therapy jets which are useful for orthopaedic therapy, sports performance, training, swimming or deep tissue massage.

Although the pool has proven to have preventative health benefits for the community, its maintenance and operation have been a headache for councils, because of the unpredictability of breakdowns.

A UK resident whose mother in Harden used the pool said he had been told the pool was expensive to heat and ideally required use all week.

He had also heard of patients coming from as far as Wagga, indicating high demand.

The pool’s annual operating costs are believed to reach six figures, not including the cost of repairs in the event of a breakdown, with parts having to come from the USA.

The former council appealed to federal and state governments for assistance, on the grounds that patients could become less dependent on other taxpayer-funded medical facilities.

It’s believed getting the pool going again could take from weeks to months, depending on the severity and nature of the failure.

We can safely bet that it won’t be up and running with an operator again by 2023.

A fairly safe bet.

In other news, Hilltops Council hit the airwaves this week as having more vacant positions than Wagga Council with 58 compared to Wagga’s 56. The neighbouring CGRC had just 14.