New school plan creates that left-out feeling

By WAYNE THOMPSON

A North Shore school is threatening to take the Ministry of Education to court over one of four schools it plans to build to serve the rapidly growing number of households in the Albany Basin.

Greenhithe School's board of trustees says ministry plans for a primary school in Kyle Rd North ignore its school.

The new primary will serve one of the housing development areas west of the Albany Highway, and is due to open in 2005.

The ministry has bought a site for the school, which it says will start with 200 Year 1 to 6 pupils and build up to a roll of 520.

Ministry figures say the significant population growth in Albany might mean an increase of 620 children aged 5 to 10 years by 2005. This is a 40 per cent increase.

Projections also show an increase of 273 intermediate school-age children, or a 60 per cent rise, which the ministry says shows a need for Kyle Rd school.

But the Greenhithe primary school's board says the ministry's planning has ignored its development plan.

It says the plan was formed with ministry support, and still had that support when it was revised last April.

Chairman Ian McHardy said the board had a strong case to challenge the ministry's flawed consultation process and any recommendation that Education Minister Trevor Mallard authorise the new school.

The plan was designed to take the Greenhithe portion of predicted roll growth until 2008.

It was drawn up after the ministry said a new primary school would not be needed until 2008.

Greenhithe was a "clapped out" country school, Mr McHardy said.

But after finding itself in an area marked for development, it had for three years willingly planned its emergence as a modern urban primary school, and invested hard-earned money in the process.

It had a roll of 400 and was planning expansion to 600 or 700 pupils.

Opening the Kyle Rd North school in 2005 cut directly across that planning.

The Kyle Rd site was 1.5km from Greenhithe School, Mr McHardy said.

It would be better for a new school to be nearer the developing Schnapper Rock area, about 2km-4km away, where there was a growing need for it.

The ministry's northern Auckland manager, Karl Hutton, said it had no intention of doing anything to disadvantage Greenhithe.

It saw Kyle Rd as being on the periphery of a huge growth area and of no threat to other schools' rolls.

The school would open with a geographical enrolment scheme, which gave students living in the area the absolute right to attend.

North Shore City councillor Margaret Miles said the community would prefer the ministry to put its resources into building a much-needed middle school at Appleby Rd, which was in the thick of housing development.

Council planning manager Trevor Mackie said Greenhithe and Albany were the city's main developing areas. Their combined population was expected to grow from 20,000 to up to 55,000 by the year 2021.

The ministry is not looking at alternative sites to Kyle Rd, but has not decided whether Appleby will be a middle school and be followed by a new secondary school.

A new school is to be built on Oteha Valley Rd in time for opening next year, and another at Caribbean Drive is a long-term prospect.