Trotters and scholars to share Alexandra Park

By Chris Daniels

Rapid population growth in Auckland will soon mean high school students kicking their rugby balls around the inside of a horse-racing track.

The Education Ministry has bought three sites for state secondary schools - with the playing fields for one in the middle of the Alexandra Park trotting circuit.

The ministry paid $7.5 million to the Auckland Trotting Club for more than 3ha of Epsom land that is now used as a carpark.

The new school, with a projected roll of 1500 students, will lease playing-field space inside the ring of the racetrack, with tunnels underneath for cars and pedestrians.

Race meetings are held only at night or on weekends, and practice sessions are usually over before 8 am.

When the school is built, race fans will park their cars inside the track, alongside the new playing fields.

The ministry now owns land for five new secondary schools across Auckland: in Albany, Howick South and Manurewa East as well as at Stanmore Bay on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula and Alexandra Park.

Officials are planning for each school to have a roll of 1500.

The last new high school in New Zealand was built in 1979.

The Alexandra Park site is part of a budgeted $20 million the Government wants to spend on new land for Auckland secondary schools.

The Albany site is on the corner of Appleby Rd and the Albany Highway, and the ministry has just bought 8ha on East Tamaki Rd near Ti Rakau Drive.

Education Minister Nick Smith said one of the difficulties was that the places where land was most needed for schools were also where it was most difficult to come by.

Domestic and international migration have put pressure on regional secondary schools, with the present roll of 78,000 students expected to grow to 103,000 by 2011.

At least two of the new schools are expected to open by 2006, but now the land has been bought, could open within two years.

Dr Smith said the Epsom and Howick schools would probably open first.

He said $32 million had been allocated to expand existing Auckland secondary schools.

The ministry was talking about expansion plans with Epsom Girls Grammar, Mt Roskill Grammar, Lynfield College and Auckland Girls Grammar.

Auckland mayor and Epsom MP Christine Fletcher, who has been urging the Government to quickly buy land for schools, yesterday welcomed the announcement, but said more land should be bought now.

"Land within the city is scarce and will never be cheaper. The best way to provide for schools required in the future is for the Government to land-bank now."