Faced with aging recreation facilities, Chatham-Kent is looking at massive costs in the coming years to upgrade or undertake new builds, but so is virtually every other Ontario municipality.

A symposium on aging recreation infrastructure held earlier this week by the Ontario Recreation Facilities Association (ORFA) warned that, without investment in recreation infrastructure, more facilities will close and “many hubs will be lost at a time when social connection and physical activity are more important than ever.”

Some statistics by the ORFA highlighting the situation include:

Ontario has more than 2,700 ice rinks, pools and community centres and much of it was built more than 50 years ago and needs to be upgraded or replaced.

The cost to replace Ontario’s recreation infrastructure is

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