A new indoor pool in Saugeen Shores may not end up being built at the arena complex.
Council passed a motion Monday night asking staff to consider alternate locations for the proposed pool, though instructions to specifically look at Cameron Park in Port Elgin were dropped prior to the vote.
Councillor Mike Myatt voted against the motion and says council settled on The Plex as its preferred location and he does not want to see the near-decade long planning process delayed again.
"Consultants on three different occasions have recommended The Plex site as the preferred site for a pool, and now we're delaying it again one more time to send it back to staff to take a look and see if there's other sites," says Myatt. "It just makes no planning sense to me."
Councillor Don Matheson put the motion on the table and says examining other sites will not slow down the process, pointing out staff have been instructed to look at alternate sites concurrently while moving the pool proposal to being shovel-ready.
The motion also instructs town staff to look at building construction types other than traditional brick-and-mortar.
Matheson points to an indoor pool constructed in Collingwood in 2013, which has a membrane structure enclosing the pool, adding the construction and operational costs could be greatly reduced by looking at a pre-fabricated structure.
Saugeen Shores council voted in 2015 to replace the aging Port Elgin Centennial Pool with a new indoor pool attached to The Plex, on the condition of securing at least two-thirds funding from outside sources.