It started with a community-led initiative, where roughly 20 people came together on February 24 to scoop out as much sand from the rock pool as they could.

Starting at 3.30pm and going for three hours, participants on the day ranged from all ages with the oldest person in attendance being around 80.

"We showed that many hands can make a difference and while we wouldn't have made much impact on the sand, the fact that so many people showed up shows us how much our community cares about the pool," organiser of the clean-up Carol Ahern said.

Ms Ahern said while the rock pool's beauty had stood the test of time, the structure had not, with sand filling the pool and lots of maintenance required to restore the pool to 'its former glory'.

"We were there clearing the sand out at low tide and in some points of it, the sand was nearly peeking out of the water, it might have been a few inches below the surface," she said.

Ms Ahern said while the sand was being dug out, many people discussed the pool's history and how it used to be maintained, with many asking questions on why council wasn't tasked with the upkeep.

"Since the Bega Valley Shire took over Imlay Shire, many people have felt that Eden as a community just seems to be neglected, especially being at the bottom of the state," she said.

From the enthusiasm of people on the day and the response to the community's efforts on social media, Ms Ahern said she hoped to see the community continue to support the upkeep of the pool.

"I hope it carries on and that more regular work on the pool will continue, I'm thinking of putting up another post in a couple of weeks time to do another big dig up," she said.

Three days later, the community banded together again to attend a meeting at the Eden Log Cabin.

Eden Community Project Officer with ERRA and organiser of the community meeting, Deb Richardson, said of the 32 people who attended, many indicated they were keen to help with the project to restore the rock pool and access's former glory.

Local historian Angela George started the discussions by giving an overview of the pool's history, followed by Clair Mudaliar manager of the Eden Visitor Information Centre who provided insight into the popularity of the pool and its importance in the town's tourism, followed by a wrap up of ERRA's efforts to bring maintenance issues to council, presented by Eric Wolske from the Eden Chamber of Commerce.

"We then had both Russell and the CEO of council get up to address the meeting and show their support of work-shopping ideas with us into the future," Ms Richardson said.

Mayor of the Bega Valley Shire Russell Fitzpatrick said council recognised the importance of the pool, with rock pools being a "wonderful asset" to the community.

"We're happy to work with the community and see how we can help raise money, but council doesn't have any money in the budget at the moment to do anything around that," he said.

Mr Fitzpatrick said council would be happy to help find ways to make the new committee become trustees of the pool with the location being on Crown Land, as well as helping the committee look into ways to raise money for future maintenance.

"We recognise that there's a lot of problems around the maintenance of the pool and how that will be provided, as well as issues around access to the rock pool," he said.

"Trying to make the old track to the pool safe for access is not impossible, but it would require a lot of work and we'd like the community to know we're willing to work with them on that."

Of the 32 people who attended the meeting, 17 came forward signing their names to join the committee, which made members of ERRA hopeful moving forward.

"I'm proposing to bring the group together in mid March, appoint some leaders for the committee and see people take that ownership and continue the fight to keep the pool going," Ms Richardson said.

Ms Richardson said one of the main priorities was to find a way to create better access to the pool so that tourists and locals could access the pool more easily.

"Even for the passengers coming off the cruise ships they have to walk up from the wharf, along the edge of the water and then all the way down to the bottom of Aslings Beach to get to the rock pool, so if they could have access to the stairs it would make it easier," she said.

Another of the main issues was removing sand from the pool and ensuring it doesn't fill up again.

"We will need to get an engineer to do a report on what's needed before knowing what the costs are going to be to get the pool repaired so that it's properly de-sanding again," Ms Richardson said.

"It's probably going to need to be de-sanded twice a year as well, once at the start of the summer season and once at the end."

Ms Richardson said the tests of time proved the pool would need to be cared for by community, having originally been built by the community with the help of the RSL sub-branch at the time.

"The community came together to built it with the RSL sub-branch getting behind it by fundraising for it and hopefully we can get them onboard again and with the help of the greater community restore it to its former glory," she said.