Head of aquatics at Hutt City Council Iain Brown says the pool's staff had been able to "effectively manage the incident" and were not the ones to call police. Photo: Supplied/Hutt City Council
Two fights have been confirmed to have broken out at Naenae's new pool, and one patron told RNZ he won't be taking his family there again.
People have taken to social media with concerns saying they've seen fights between patrons at the Te Ngaengae Pool in Naenae, which opened in December.
Police said they were called to the pool at 5.25pm on Tuesday, "after a report of two youths fighting and possibly a verbal altercation involving one of the youth's parents."
"The parent and youth left before police arrived and there was no way to identify them," a police spokesperson.
"There were no injuries reported."
Head of aquatics at Hutt City Council Iain Brown said the pool's staff had been able to "effectively manage the incident" and were not the ones to call police.
"In the three months the pool has been open, there has been one other altercation for which our staff did call police," Brown said.
"Police have also supported us on a couple of minor incidents such as trespassing people which is not uncommon across our community facilities," Brown said.
Paul Olsthoorn, who took his five-year-old granddaughter to the pool a few weekends ago, said he wouldn't go back.
"On arrival there the first thing that we came across was two policemen interviewing a staff member about an incident that had happened."
Olsthoorn said some groups were very loud, and were swimming in street clothes.
He said they were "very intimidating at times for the younger people swimming in the pool".
Olsthoorn said the staff at the pool didn't address the situation and appeared to be very young.
Despite the brand new facilities, he said they also found the slides had been closed due to a lack of staff.
Olsthoorn said other similar pools like Wainuiomata seemed to be run much better.
The council said it took safety seriously and continuously reviewed it procedures to ensure its pools remained a welcoming and secure space for all.
"Anyone managing public spaces deals with these sorts of issues on a regular basis.
"Our staff are fully trained, equipped and supported on an ongoing basis to respond to a broad range of challenging situations, including threatening behaviour at our facilities," said Brown.
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