Admission charges at ocean baths

In many parts of the NSW coast, there is no charge to swim at supervised or unsupervised ocean baths. To people in these communities, charging to use the ocean baths seems as bizarre and inappropriate an idea as charging for the use of the beach and is condemned as imposing a barrier to the acquisition of swimming skills and use of a safety facility at the beach.

Shellharbour Council still wants 'all children to fully enjoy pools regardless of financial status' and does not charge for use of either its unheated public pools or its ocean baths. The increasing cost of providing supervision at its ocean baths to address public liability concerns  led Shoalhaven City Council to debate imposing admission charges at its sea baths at Ulladulla and Huskisson.

Admission charges applied at the nineteenth century baths at Bronte, Bondi, Coogee, and Newcastle. In the early 1900s, the NSW government was once reluctant to grant a further lease for Coogee's Ladies Baths to Randwick Council on the grounds that council had imposed excessive charges at the baths. Charges still apply at the Bondi Icebergs pool.

Kiama Council kept its ocean baths free of charges despite debating the issue for many years. Visitors in the 1920s used to wonder how Kiama Council managed to maintain its ocean baths. Pool charges have been abandoned at the Newcastle Ocean Baths, the Newcastle Bogey Hole, the Wollongong Continental Baths, the Port Kembla Olympic baths and the Forster Ocean Baths.

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