Mount Hot Pools staff members are being mobilised with lifeguard duties and rubbish collection in an effort to keep them busy during the facility's closure due to repairs.

The pools are closed for an indefinite period, expected to be to the tune of months, as extensive repairs are conducted to replace and upgrade the pipes and filtration equipment.

Mount Hot Pools are closed for emergency repairs after a large leak was identified.

Tauranga City Aquatics Ltd CEO Tania Delahunty says staff contracts dictate that their employment continues at this time – despite the closure.

'Under our contractual obligations, TCAL is required to retain all full time staff over the closure period while emergency repair works are being undertaken.

'Our first priority has been to redeploy as many staff as possible across our other facilities at Baywave, Greerton and Otumoetai and to work with our staff to take annual leave during the closure.

'As a result, most staff are now actively involved in lifeguarding as well as doing other tasks inside the network, or they are taking winter holidays,” says Tania.

Some staff are continuing their same work, but at a different place; the massage therapists, for example, who were based at the hot pools, are now operating from Baywave.

The biggest problem that has faced TCAL with the sudden redeployment has been that most of its rosters were already committed when the unscheduled closure was announced.

'Even with our best efforts, we can't absorb all of the additional man hours we have available to us immediately, and so we started brainstorming other ways to use our team.

'That's when the idea of community work came to the fore, and the idea of working at the beach was mentioned as a project that all staff could get behind.”

On June 23 TCAL staff will head to Mount Maunganui Main Beach and participate in a clean-up there.

Tania recognises the significant inconvenience and cost of the pools' closure and hopes by undertaking this community initiative, it signals a gesture of goodwill to the Tauranga public.