Council unanimously calls on State to build new schools in the Eastern suburbs

Last week in Council, Cr Steven Huang, Councillor for MacGregor Ward moved a motion that called on the State government to purchase land to build new schools to cater for our growing population and to consult Council on the infrastructure needs to cater for increasing student enrolments.

I was happy to second the motion as the State Government and the state MP Corrine McMillan have been brushing residents’ concerns aside for far too long and blaming Council for the traffic issues surrounding Mansfield, Mt Gravatt, and Wishart.

To my surprise, the motion received bi-partisan support from opposition Labor Councillors and passed with 21 votes in favour. This recognises that the State Government has not been working with Council when it comes to expanding school capacity.

Some residents might ask why we need to build new schools in our area? In the last ten years, the State Government has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Mansfield State School and Mansfield State High School.

During that time, congestion issues have rapidly developed in the community, with Council seeing a sharp rise in the number of complaints about traffic and parking issues.

These complaints range from residents being unable to enter their properties due to vehicles parking on driveways, to illegal u-turns in the middle of main roads to queuing through intersections and more alarmingly, cutting across two lanes to enter the school grounds. These are all issues well documented on the Wishart, Mansfield & Mt Gravatt Facebook community page.

Hazardous is now synonymous with the major roads surrounding the school during school pick-up and drop-off hours, as the amount of traffic coming through continues to increase at the same rate as the school does.

Since 2010, Mansfield State High School has grown by 116% and Mansfield State School by 37%. From across these schools- more than 1,000 students are from out of catchment, which means a higher likelihood of car use to get to and from school.

This is not a fault of the school itself, but rather a failure of the Education Department’s policy and the local MP, Corrine McMillan, to recognise that this policy isn’t working.

To find out residents’ thoughts on the matter, I released a survey in Mansfield named the Mansfield Area Traffic Survey (or MATS). More than 200 households across Mansfield responded to the survey with 87% of residents believing that it isn’t fair for the State Government to invest millions in buildings inside the school and nothing on the local roads. It also found that 74% of residents agreed on introducing an enrolment cap on the schools.

As a result of this, I wrote to the Education Minister, Grace Grace, requesting such. She wrote back with a very legal argument that it is currently impossible under the Education (General Provisions) Act 2006.

Unfortunately, the Minister did not understand the request. We want her to change the legislation to make it possible because the growth of these schools is simply unsustainable.

Residents are fed up with being taken for granted by the State Government and the local member, who is just happy to shovel more and more money into the school, cut more ribbons, and open new buildings. Meanwhile, the local roads grind to a halt, and there is no plan for a second campus, no plan from her to alleviate this pressure, and no plan about how we can support other schools in our area. Just more buildings into Mansfield.

Both schools do not have any surrounding infrastructure like a busway or train station to support moving thousands of students in and around the area like other significant schools such as Brisbane State High (which only has 200 more students than MSHS).

There is plenty of land to build new schools and invest in existing schools in the surrounding area, but the State Government has decided to put all their eggs into one basket.

It is time for the State Government to diversify and purchase land around Rochedale, Mackenzie or Burbank to build another school to service these rapidly growing suburbs. And clearly, all Councillors in Brisbane City Council, both Labor and LNP believe so as well.

If you’d like to read my speech on the motion, you can do so here.

Video from Pam Stuart-Hensley via Facebook