Spotlight: Merri Creek Corridor

It takes years to plan, fund, build and open a new government school. Many years. The new Richmond High and South Melbourne Primary finally opened in 2018, while Prahran High is still under construction. Yet these schools were top shelf election promises, finally acknowledging the parent driven campaigns for new schools in the overcrowded inner suburbs.

So what about those inner areas with rampaging development, surging primary school enrolments, insufficient secondary schools, but no parent campaign as yet? If a proactive, coordinated planning methodology was in place, there would be no need for Learning from the Past to shine the spotlight on the Merri Creek Corridor. But as things stand, it won’t be long before Northcote and Brunswick residents turn the blowtorch on the bureaucrats who’ve let them down.

The ‘Merri Creek Corridor’ is neither a suburb nor a council. It has no official status and does not appear as a planning zone in its own right. It is loosely defined as the suburbs of Brunswick East, Northcote and North Fitzroy, connected by Merri Creek. But it falls under the spotlight via the Education Act, for this is the Northcote High School zone. Northcote High is already significantly overcrowded and set to experience new population pressures in the coming years.

School Enrolments

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	%
Brunswick North PS	229	280	336	377	430	471	526	553	538	135%
Brunswick North West PS	212	227	230	257	278	300	318	364	412	94%
Brunswick South PS	196	223	250	232	254	282	310	318	330	68%
Brunswick South West PS	302	298	306	320	345	347	370	404	437	45%
Brunswick East PS	307	337	378	401	408	444	474	457	461	50%
Moreland PS	168	206	222	266	271	296	320	323	317	89%
Merri Creek PS	304	305	328	364	372	402	418	440	442	45%
Westgarth PS	454	508	541	584	621	592	615	647	650	43%
Northcote PS	251	281	304	309	322	353	374	377	382	52%
Fitzroy North PS	530	528	533	535	557	545	530	532	528	0%
Princes Hill PS	435	433	436	451	471	449	463	453	432	0%
Thornbury PS	284	323	345	345	369	328	315	326	357	26%
TOTAL PRIMARY	3672	3949	4209	4441	4698	4809	5033	5194	5286	44%
Brunswick SC	962	963	979	1004	1021	1010	1019	1026	1026	7%
Northcote HS	1450	1503	1546	1569	1618	1647	1650	1749	1792	24%
Fitzroy HS	462	443	453	469	501	537	588	602	629	36%
Princes Hill SC	810	846	828	834	867	868	882	867	885	9%
Coburg HS	208	216	221	180	129	256	410	532	697	235%
TOTAL SECONDARY	3892	3971	4027	4056	4136	4318	4549	4776	5029	29%

Local primary schools have been experiencing a surge in numbers for several years, and local secondary schools are starting to feel the upstream effects. This demographic change is consistent with projections foreseen by Paul Weldon of the Australian Council for Educational Research. Weldon’s report predicted that Victoria would see major increases in the number of students entering secondary schools from 2018.

The Merri Creek Corridor has only three relevant secondary schools: Brunswick Secondary College, Northcote High School and the emergent Coburg High School. Despite Coburg High becoming a new destination for Year 7 students from 2015, it barely altered the Northcote High School zone.

Northcote High, already with 1,800 students, remains the local school for a rapidly growing catchment. How will the school grounds and adjacent parkland cope with 2,000 or more students in the foreseeable future? Relocatable buildings are straining at the edges of the school boundary, a stop gap solution to over-crowding. This cannot continue indefinitely.

Planning for a new high school in the Merri Creek Corridor should start now.

Development Boom

Counting cranes is no longer a CBD specific past-time: the inner north is now a development hot spot. Low, medium and high rise buildings are replacing old housing and factory stock with the corresponding population increase.

The Merri Creek Corridor has been experiencing a development boom for several years, but this is about to escalate. The number of projects under construction, or about to commence or having achieved planning approval is staggering. Families with children are moving in to the Merri Creek Corridor. The primary schools are barely coping with much larger enrolments, and the few secondary schools will be next.

The Urbis planning consultancy reported “a thumping 6,000 apartments being built or in pre-sales across 50 projects in the inner north”. Learning from the Past has conducted its own research using data from Moreland, Darebin and Yarra council resources. We rejected aerial photography on privacy grounds, opting to personally walk the streets to examine building developments across the Corridor. The result: 8,000 dwellings, be they apartments, townhouses or houses.

To repeat: 8,000 dwellings.

The Politics

The inner north was once Labor Party heartland. Government schools were not election issues: the Liberal Party would never win those seats; the Labor Party would never lose them. In the 1990s too many schools were closed in the area, particularly secondary schools, without harming the electoral standing of the Kennett Liberal Government in the slightest.

In the years preceding 2010, the Brumby Labor Government slapped down the High School for Coburg campaign. Then something new happened: in losing the 2010 election, inner northern seats swung sharply to The Greens. This continued apace in 2014, when the seats of Melbourne and Prahran fell to The Greens, with new school provision emerging as an issue.

Formerly safe Labor seats in the inner north are now marginal, with The Greens aggressively positioning themselves to take Brunswick and Richmond in 2018.

Learning from the Past urges the Victorian Government to ensure that schools are built when and where they are needed based on independent population projections, thereby minimising the need for local communities to campaign for years just to get a government school in their area. Ideally, the Victorian Auditor-General would conduct an investigation into school closures and sales from the 1990s to the present day, but this may fall outside the parameters of VAGO’s powers.