Figures contained in council reports show a 69 per cent underspend on pools in the financial year up to May, which critics say is typical of council's "serious neglect" of capital infrastructure works.

"This financial year the budget calls for $1.6 million in capital works to be spent on pools," Councillor John Church said. "At the end of May just $624,000 had been spent, an underspend of approximately $1 million."

The council's annual reports show that in the 2018/19 financial year the council spent $54,000 on city pools across the city. "To put that into context, it is roughly the amount we pay per week to rent the administration building at 12 Stewart Avenue,'' Councillor Church said.

"The lack of capital works expenditure on our inland pools is a clear example of the neglect of our many ageing assets," Councillor Church said. "Lambton Pool is more than 50 years of age and is one of our most popular and utilised assets."

A spokeswoman for the council said during the past four years the council had spent $9.9 million on inland pools, not including a half a million dollars for a new water slide at Lambton Pool.

The list of pool-related projects delivered since 2017 included grandstands and a new playground at Mayfield, shade structures at Wallsend, safety works and new starting blocks at Lambton, new pool blankets and lane ropes, and bench seating, she said.

However, the council confirmed that the $9.9 million figure includes day-to-day maintenance of the pools and surrounding grounds, as well as the staging of swim events, marketing, promotion,, operation and management of the swim centres, as opposed to just capital works. "The $10 million has been used for a variety of purposes," she said.

Deputy mayor Declan Clausen agreed that the inland pools were ageing, and that there should be a "public, year-round pool" in Newcastle. But the council needed "to work in a prudent manner to see it delivered", he said, including looking to the State Government where it had potentially committed to a facility close by.

The NSW Government's recent announcement to spend $6.7 million to prepare a "final business case" for the Broadmeadow site, which may include an aquatic centre, meant it would be "irresponsible" to spend millions on Lambton pool, he said.

"Given the constraints of council's budgets, it would be irresponsible of council to waste many, many tens of millions of dollars upgrading the Lambton facility while a new, NSW Government pool could be built a few hundred metres away at Broadmeadow."

Treasurer Dominic Perrottet has said that the project, known as Hunter Park, would include up to 2600 homes and more than 30 hectares of upgraded public space during a "possible 12-year construction phase".

Councillor Church said that "hoping" for an aquatic centre to be built in the Broadmeadow Sports Precinct was fraught with uncertainty. "Business planning has only just been funded and work on the site could be many years away," he said. "Money needs to be spent now on pools such as Lambton to prevent further deterioration.