A burglary has put the Cromwell Swim Centre out of action for several days.
A locked meeting room door and locked internal door were broken to get into the building between 8.30pm on Saturday and 9.15am on Sunday.
Sergeant Bruce Terry, of Cromwell, said the offender or offenders "made a mess, searching for stuff and breaking glass'' and caused up to $5000 worth of damage.
"It's disappointing that now the pool staff and community will have to get that fixed and that the offenders have taken that activity [swimming] away from our community, especially from our young people, in the school holidays,'' he said.
A laptop computer was taken in the burglary.
The complex is run by the Central Otago District Council. Parks and recreation manager Mat Begg said it could be tomorrow before the pool was reopened.
"It is distressing to think that someone in our community would damage our popular community facility,'' he said.
Because the pool was opened to the elements overnight on Saturday, it lost a great amount of heat and could not be opened on Sunday or yesterday as the pool temperature was well below normal.
"The pool gas boiler had an issue the previous week and after partial repairs was still not working at its optimum. This burglary and the loss of heat has resulted in the pool being well below temperature, as the facility has not recovered heat as quickly as we hoped, due to an ongoing problem with the gas boiler.
Work was being carried out on the boiler to get it working and parts were to arrive early this week, Mr Begg said.
Cromwell police (03) 445 1999 or Crimestoppers 0800 555 111.
