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A pop-up food stall at Canberra’s troubled 'big splash' water park has done nothing to alleviate concerns about the future of the site. The facility in Macquarie is set to be closed for a third straight summer and the regulator says it can't do anything because it considers it is more likely than not that the owners have complied with the conditions of their lease.

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00:01A limited street food menu, cooked on a portable barbecue, set up under a fold-out gazebo.
00:08Add in a portaloo and you've got the promised unlicensed family restaurant at the Big Splash site.
00:14Having a couple of trestle tables with a barbecue for one day only is not what we think is an
00:20unlicensed family restaurant.
00:21Farcical. I don't think anyone thinks that's good enough and I don't think the minister should think it's good enough
00:27either.
00:28The owners of the waterpark originally said they'd have the pool back on operation by November 1.
00:33When it became clear that wasn't going to happen, they said they'd instead run a restaurant on the site in
00:40order to comply with the conditions of the lease.
00:43After yesterday's pop-up, today the site sat empty.
00:46The community is angry about this. The community is really tired of lease squatting and they expect the government to
00:54be taking charge.
00:55Access Canberra says its hands are tied.
00:59Access Canberra is considered a range of factors and is satisfied that on the balance of probabilities, it's more likely
01:05than not that this lease is compliant.
01:07The regulator saying it can't take legal action because its role is to apply the law as it stands.
01:13The potential permissiveness of the lease, the activity yesterday and the other activity over the last few months about the
01:20replacement of the fence, we don't see that we would be likely to succeed in an action.
01:25The site remains on the market but no buyer has been found.
01:29The ACT government announced in September it would prepare a report that would detail the cost of bringing the venue
01:36back into operation.
01:37That won't be ready until later next year and with the regulator saying there's not enough evidence to justify further
01:43action, the future of the site will remain in limbo.
01:47conceptualization.
01:47You

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