General Manager of Griffith City Council Brett Stonestreet confirmed the city had not been named as one of the successful bids under the National Stronger Regions Funds grants which would have accounted for 50 per cent of the $5.5 million needed to build the pool.

Mr Stonestreet said the funding round had been ‘highly competitive’.

“Out of the 467 applications that the federal government received in Round 3 of funding only 67 were successful,” he said.

“One of the key criteria was economic growth and creation of jobs, which with a swimming pool can be difficult to show.”

Mr Stonestreet said council had also struggled to demonstrate disadvantage within the community.

“Currently our unemployment rate is very low and ironically that is not good when applying for grants like these,” he said.

“But I would rather council miss out on a grant due to our disadvantage score not being high enough than the alternative.”

Despite the bad news Mr Stonestreet said an outdoor 50m pool was still on the council agenda.

“It will still happen, it is just a question of when,” he said.

“It is an important project, but there are also other projects, like the CBD project.

“We were going to do both but now council will have to think about where this sits in terms of priority and rethink how we work the pool in.”

President of Griffith Business Chamber Paul Pierotti said the funding loss was ‘unfortunate’.

“We are a major contributor to the state and federal economies and it is only fair that we get our share,” he said.

However, Mr Pierotti said the delay was a good opportunity to go back to the drawing board and develop an improved plan.

“We could have a truly magnetic facility that would draw people from the entire region and boost our position as a strong regional hub,” he said.