School Board Hopes To Stop Land Sale

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32321, 12 June 1970, Page 12

School Board Hopes To Stop Land Sale

A direct approach is to be made by the Burnside High School board to the Minister of Education (Mr Tai boys) and the member of Parliament for Riccarton, Mr E. S. F. Holland (Nat.), to stop the sale of land on the Memorial Avenue frontage of the school.

At its meeting last evening the board decided to support the stand taken by the school’s Parent-teacher Association in expressing concern over the decision to sell part of the present Memorial Avenue frontage of the school for building sections.

Fears were expressed by most of the eight members of the board present that the loss of the land would further aggravate space requirements for the school, which will eventually become one of the largest secondary schools in the South Island. “It is entirely wrong to have a school, a big school, an exciting school like this marred by a dog-legged piece of fenced-in property. The whole vista will be ruined," the acting-chairman Mr E. C. Robinson said.

“Talk about pollution of the atmosphere—this is pollution of another kind. If this is planning of an area, it is pretty poor planning,” he said. Unpopular Decision The Department of Educa-

tion, because of monetary gain, was making an unpopular decision and one which

Mr Robinson said he personally deplored. “The sooner someone changes Government policy on these matters the better,” he said.

(The board had received a letter from the Department of Education which stated that “wherever possible land on the street frontage of school property should be given over to housing.”) Dr J. M. Austin: There must have been a change in Government policy since the school was built as there are no housing sections on the Greers Road frontage of the school. Mr Robinson said he wondered “just for whom” the sections on the Memorial Avenue frontage had been reserved. Other Lands Explaining that the school already had more land than was normally the case for a coeducational high school the secretary of the board (Mr P J. Halligan) pointed out that there were schools with less land with present rolls much larger than the 1970 roll of Burnside (1247). Schools which he cited were Cashmere High School, Hagley High School and Christchurch Girls’ High School. The board agreed with the suggestion of the actingchairman that they had exhausted avenues of approach

with the Department of Education and decided on direct approaches te the Minister of Education and the member of Parliament for Riccarton. Rapid expansion of the school roll had meant almost intolerable pressures on staff and buildings the actingprincipal (Mr A. B. Heeney) said.

“We have always been desperately short of space and as we are growing it will be needed more than ever,” he said.

“We certainly won’t get permanent buildings till the new development plans are approved.”