The Queensland government has spent $2 million planning a new primary school in inner-west Brisbane but after five years and two identified sites, the school’s location is still in doubt.
The Palaszczuk government announced in 2020 that it would build the school for $65 million to open by 2023. It is now budgeted to cost $90 million and open in 2024.
Following strong community opposition to the government's latest preferred location at the former Toowong Bowls Club site, Greens MP Michael Berkman revealed the government was reconsidering the location last week.
The cost of planning for the new school involves a business case and scouting for a location since the Queensland Schools Planning Reference Committee first identified its potential need in 2017.
The education department's first proposed location, on the grounds of Indooroopilly State High School, drew outrage from locals about building a fifth school where four already existed within 500 metres of each other, with existing traffic problems and on land with flooding risks.
After political and community opposition, the department later identified the site of the former Toowong Bowls Club near Perrin Park as its second "preferred location".
The decision came despite existing community concerns about flooding, traffic congestion, loss of green space and environmental impacts.
The Toowong Bowls Club site was swamped by the 2011 floods and the site was again inundated during the 2022 floods.
The Brisbane City Council's historic flood map, which uses state government and council estimates of the extent 1974 flood, indicates the same area was flooded.
According to the school's designs, the classrooms would be built above the Q100 and Q500 flood levels, and allow for an emergency evacuation.
But concerns remained about how the proposed 900 students — and their parents — would safely access and evacuate the school in a weather event, and how soon they could return to school if it was damaged.
Last week education minister Grace Grace also conceded the original enrolment pressure across inner-west schools, which was used in justifying a new school in the 2019 business case, had since eased.
Project to incur up-front costs
A department spokesperson said all high-value infrastructure projects required rigorous and comprehensive business cases and designs for robust assessment.
"It is not possible to carry out genuine consultation with the community, seek feedback on designs, and explore issues raised by the community without first undertaking this work," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said every project incurred up-front costs and due diligence needed to be undertaken.
"This includes a detailed business case, flood modelling, geotechnical investigations, architectural drawings, traffic management studies, flora and fauna surveys, contamination reports, environment impact assessments and more," the spokesperson said.
"It is important to note this work and these investigations will continue to provide guidance and information for a new primary school in the inner-west region."
Opposition calls for transparency
Opposition education spokesperson Christian Rowan said the state government had failed at community consultation and project planning.
"The state Labor government needs to be open and transparent on the next steps to address school enrolment growth in the western suburbs, what changes are expected in relation to current school catchments, and what the state government's plan is to fix the mess created by the Labor Minister for Education," he said.
The government is waiting to see the consultation report before any decisions are made about the new inner-west primary school.
Ms Grace said the money spent determining the site for the new primary school had not been wasted.
She reiterated she was "extremely conscious" of taking community feedback into account and said she had been advised that, following the 2022 floods, the inner-west community was not supportive of using the Toowong Bowls Club site.
"This is in contrast to feedback given in two rounds of extensive community consultation prior to the 2022 floods, where sentiment was in favour of this site [as] opposed to other options," Ms Grace said.
Reconsider 60 locations, says councillor
Walter Taylor ward councillor James Mackay said he would continue working with the department to find the best location for the school.
"I don't think anyone disputes the fact that there's a need for a new school, but what locals are very keen to see is that no green space or public spaces are used for the school because that creates knock-on effects," he said.
"The information [the department] supplied said that they have investigated more than 60 sites before choosing the site.
"So that means that there must be many, many more locations that they could consider as part of that, and I welcome them to revisit that list of 60 to try to find a more suitable site."
