13 November 2026
Just two months after opening for the summer, the historic Zoo Lake Swimming Pool has turned green and will be closed due to a shortage of chlorine. Photos: Ihsaan Haffejee
The City of Johannesburg announced on Thursday that all 57 public pools will be closed by Monday, due to a shortage of chlorine.
“The health and safety of our residents must always come first,” Mbulelo Bezu, acting director for the City’s community development department, said in a statement.
“Operating unchlorinated pools is unsafe, so we made the difficult decision to close the facilities while we urgently resolve this supply chain disruption.”
Emergency procurement has been launched to secure chlorine supplies, the statement read.
This comes as several heatwaves have hit Johannesburg, with temperatures forecast to stay in the high 20s and low 30s next week. 
GroundUp reported in October about delays in the opening of the City’s municipal pools.
Pools were meant to open on 1 September, but this was postponed due to delays in hiring staff, doing repairs and maintenance, and a shortage of water treatment chemicals.
A public swimming pool in Orlando, Soweto is starting to turn green in the middle.
A new deadline to open 36 pools on 1 October was also delayed. By the second week of October, only 20 pools had opened.
Tenders for chemicals closed only in mid-September.
Lifeguards and officials familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous, told GroundUp the shortage of chlorine is only one part of the story.
Because many pools remained closed, those that were open were overcrowded, and there were too few lifeguards.
There were delays in appointing lifeguards this year. Adverts in June set a new minimum requirement of grade 12, which excluded many former staff members. The positions were re-advertised at the beginning of September without the requirement.
Public pools draw people from all corners of the city. We recently met 11-year-old Nkululeko from Yeoville. He and his friends walked for over an hour, with their R22 fee in hand for the group, to get to the closest open public pool in the upmarket suburb of Parkview.
Dozens of visitors at pools we have visited travelled from far away just to swim.
Yunus Chamda, the programme coordinator at the Joburg Crisis Alliance, told GroundUp the closure of pools “deprives residents of a much needed leisure activity as the heat wave hits South Africa. This is a clear lack of service on the part of the City [which] must be resolved”.
The public pool in Eldorado Park is empty.
He said it is “indicative of poor management, especially financial planning. We have these valuable assets that can’t be used.” He compared it to buying a car and leaving it standing because there is no petrol.
DA shadow mayco member for community development Lyrics Mazibuko said closing the pools would disproportionately affect working-class and poor communities.
“Swimming pool chemicals are not unexpected or extraordinary requirements … the swimming season is predictable, and the City knows precisely how many facilities it is responsible for maintaining,” said Mazibuko.
Incoming Rise Mzansi PR councillor Malik Dasoo, who has been active in organising with the community to open the Parkview pool, said that “when you lose community spaces, you lose the soul of the city”.
Dasoo criticised the City for poor communication, a lack of transparency and only making announcements once a situation had reached crisis levels.
The once world-class swimming facilities at the Ellis Park pool in Johannesburg have not been maintained and are falling into ruin.