No chlorine, no swimming: Joburg pools close

Detailed summary

The closure comes during a heatwave and after months of delays in opening the pools.

The City of Johannesburg announced on Thursday that all 57 public pools will be closed by Monday, due to a shortage of chlorine.

“The health and safety of our residents must always come first,” Mbulelo Bezu, acting director for the City’s community development department, said in a statement.

“Operating unchlorinated pools is unsafe, so we made the difficult decision to close the facilities while we urgently resolve this supply chain disruption.”

Emergency procurement has been launched to secure chlorine supplies, the statement read.

This comes as several heatwaves have hit Johannesburg, with temperatures forecast to stay in the high 20s and low 30s next week.

GroundUp reported in October about delays in the opening of the City’s municipal pools.

Pools were meant to open on 1 September, but this was postponed due to delays in hiring staff, doing repairs and maintenance, and a shortage of water treatment chemicals.

A public swimming pool in Orlando, Soweto is starting to turn green in the middle.

A new deadline to open 36 pools on 1 October was also delayed. By the second week of October, only 20 pools had opened.

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