THE ULMARRA community can halve the costs of running the local swimming pool says a group dedicated to saving it.

The secretary of the Ulmarra Pool Preservations Association (UPPA), Des Flatley, said his group could offer the Clarence Valley Council a dollar-for-dollar funding plan to keep the pool.

Mr Flatley spoke at last week's council meeting to protest against its plans for the pool.

These plans suggested either the community took over the running of the pool or it would be closed and demolished.

"Their idea was to take the pool off Soyuvu - that's Alan Paterson and his sister - and give it to the community to run," Mr Flatley said.

"Then there was conjecture about 'what if the community run it down to the ground and then hand it back to us?'

"Well it's already run down to the ground because of lack of maintenance."

He said the council's figures showed the council had only spent about $800 in the past three years doing maintenance and that was forced on them by us.   Despite the council's inaction, there have been improvements at the pool.

Last year the community arranged to erect shade cloth over a section of the pool, paid for by a grant from the State Government.

Mr Flatley said the community was prepared to take on more extensive repairs to the pool, including fixing a major leak.

He said he had a quote from a reputable company to fix the leak for $7000 by installing a pool liner.

But the council had quoted $200,000 for the maintenance.

"The feel here is the council has just let it run down," he said. "We feelt that why they've let it run down is they want to say it's got into such disrepair, we need to demolish that.

"I asked Richie Williamson about three weeks ago, if you pulled this pool down what was your option?

"He said, 'we'll put a skate park in'. A skate park in Ulmarra, God knows, we don't need another skate park."

Mr Flatley said a skate park would be ok for young people, but the pool served the older community, including residents of Rathgar Lodge.

He said the community was looking forward to a public meeting later this year to put forward its plans.