Land For High School

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32322, 13 June 1970, Page 10

Land For High School

Bumside High School is being planned to grow into an unusually large school with almost twice as many pupils as other secondary schools in Christchurch. Provision for this extraordinary growth is a substitute for building another school in the northwestern quarter of the city: and it has to be managed so that pupils will suffer no educational disadvantage through the school’s becoming a large, impersonal institution. The Education Department has given much thought to the needs of this growing school, which is something of an experiment—and a very important one.

It is barely likely that the school will require the 56 acres of land set aside for educational purposes in 1940 and now, in part, occupied by the school. The 35 acres of which the school is assured might well seem a liberal allocation—but, once lost, spare land will never be recovered to repair a deficiency exposed in later years. Nothing would be lost by a policy of wait-and-see; the land will continue to appreciate in value. The objections of the school’s board of governors, its parent-teacher association, and the Christchurch Secondary Schools Council to the sale of some of the land might be abated if the department showed more concern for the interests of the school and less concern for the property' market. There should be room for compromise here; but the interests of the school must come first.