Canty ‘not affected by land sales’

Press, 22 July 1986, Page 8

Canty ‘not affected by land sales’

A plan to sell surplus Education Board land to help balance the Education Department budget will not affect Canterbury, says Mr Keith McNeil, the Canterbury Education Board’s general manager.

Last week the Minister of Education, Mr Marshall, said the department would look at the possibility of selling surplus land to help balance Its budget

But Mr McNeil said the Canterbury board had very little surplus land because most had been returned to the Crown when the previous Minister, Mr Wellington, had cut costs.

The board had one storage area which could be regarded as surplus, Mr McNeil said. It would be only too happy to sell this, if alternative storage space could be found. The department’s assistant director-general (administrative), Mr John Egan, said education boards would be approached soon to take another look at their land. If there was any disagreement about whether land was surplus, department staff and board representatives would "sit" down and talk.”

The department had been selling land for the last three or four years, he said, because rolls

were falling and schools were not having to expand as much as it was previously thought they would. The department had raised about $3 million a year from the sale of land.

“This year we will just crank it (sale of land) up a bit,” he said. s