By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
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PARENTS at Springvale Rise Primary School are asking where the money is after plans to build a basketball court and gym were halted “mid-project”.
School council president Sean O’Reilly said the school had this month been planning to start the works for what was thought to be stage two of a federally funded Building the Education Revolution project.
The proposed site at the school’s Springvale Heights campus had been demolished and earthworks had started. The project, which is being managed by the state government, was ordered to stop “around the state budget time”, Mr O’Reilly said.
“All the plans were drawn up. We were expecting to have the asphalt poured on it and they instead got some contractors to come and throw soil and grass seed over the site.
“Our immediate concern is that the kids can’t play basketball or netball. There are also health and safety issues like the steep set of slopes and stumps for the kids to trip up on.”
He said the school expected stage two to be started closely after stage one – for a library and 10 classrooms – was completed 12 months ago.
“It was always a Building the Education Revolution project. It was split up into two stages for procedural reasons, and then the state government got a free ride with all this federal funding. Now where has the money gone?”
Education Minister Martin Dixon said in state parliament last Tuesday that the basketball courts were part of a master plan and not funded by the BER.
“I presume the school was expecting money to flow on, but there was never any money allocated for the basketball courts.
“Many schools were led to believe that because they had gone through a planning process they were going to receive funding at the end. In fact, many schools were actually promised that, and they have not.
“We have inherited over 200 schools that are basically shovel ready, or at least master planned, and which were under the false expectation that they were going to be upgraded.”
In Parliament last Tuesday, Lyndhurst Labor MP Tim Holding urged Mr Dixon to intervene to reinstate the project works.
“The bottom line is that the works have stopped literally mid-project and the contractors have abandoned the site at the direction of the department. The school has no indication of the status of the broader stage two works.
“[I] conclude that coalition election commitments have leapfrogged existing projects and commitments that were already under way and, in some cases, very well advanced when the change of government occurred.”
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