After over a year of debate, the State Government has agreed to purchase the old City of Sydney depot on Wattle Street for the purpose of relocating and up-sizing the existing Ultimo Public school.
“I am pleased to advise that the department accepts your proposed purchase price of $74 million,” the Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli wrote to the Lord Mayor.
The two parties had previously been unable to come to an agreement on the value of the site and the cost to decontaminate it.
On the November 25, the day before the sale was expected to go ahead, the Department for Education controversially walked away from the deal citing its “frustration with the Council”.
The Lord Mayor, Clover Moore said in the following council meeting that “the Minister appeared to not be across the issue at all”.
At this point, Moore was proposing that Council and the State Government split the difference between their two offers, which amounted to Council dropping their asking price by $4.5 million.
But Liberal Councillor, Edward Mandla put forth an amendment to the Lord Mayors motion, proposing that council meet the highest offer from the State Government.
Council adjourned and the CEO was given time to decide whether Cr Mandla’s proposal constituted “a legitimate offer from the State,” given that they had previously withdrawn from negotiations.
The amendment was accepted and the motion passed unanimously.
Ms Moore said that this was a chance for the State Government to show that it was serious about building a new school.
“The Minister for Education must now instruct his Department to immediately resume negotiations with the City to conclude an agreement for the sale of this site so that a primary school can be built as soon as possible,” she said.
Minister Piccoli responded on December 12 indicating that he accepted the offer, but he put in place a number of conditions.
The payment for the site will take place in two equal installments separated by a year and Council has until the 19th of December to accept this.
Included in the sale was the condition that the State constructs an 80 space childcare facility.
The Lord Mayor told City Hub that she accepted the conditions.
“I am delighted that the State Government accepted our offer for the sale of land in Ultimo for a new primary school and child-care centre.
“This is a great result for the community and we look forward to the State Government beginning construction”.
Minister Piccoli has previously promised to have a new inner-city school up and running by 2017 and is being pushed by the Independent Member for Sydney, Alex Greenwhich and the Greens Member for Balmain, Jamie Parker to honor this.
But Mr Piccoli has announced the school will be open for Term 1 in 2018.
Ultimo Public School Parents and Citizen’s Assosciation spokesperson, Bill d’Anthes welcomed the sale but said that the result could have come much earlier.
“We’ve lost a year in effect because of the miscommunication between the two parties,” he said.
“There was a blizzard of letters from the community urging both the State and the City of Sydney to get this over the line, and we’re relieved that they finally have.”
Mr D’Anthes says that the next step necessary is for an inner city high school so that the students of Ultimo Public School don’t have to travel to other Suburbs such as Leichhardt for their first three years of secondary education.
