New home: Councillors Kylie Fisher and Cameron Granger at the Wathaurong cooperative with Lyn McInnes, Jodie Bath and, at front, children Jannalli, Tahlia and Shara. Picture: Tommy Ritchie 59693
Andrew Mathieson
A KINDERGARTEN destroyed by fire could take years to rise from the ashes in Geelong’s northern suburbs, a Geelong councillor has warned.
Cameron Granger said children enrolled at the Rosewall kindergarten would instead travel to North Geelong’s Wathaurong Aboriginal Coop-erative this year.
Finding cash for a new kinder “won’t be easy or fast”, he said.
“The likely solution will be a community hub built on the site where the Rosewall Neighbourhood Centre is and the old kindergarten was.
“If that’s the case, we’re talking millions of dollars and have to find funding for that. Even if we had the funding it would take quite some time to build, so in the next 12 months it’s unfeasible.”
He sought to allay concerns council might never restore the kinder.
“The Rosewall community is quite nervous that because this has been burnt down that the City might pull the services away from that part of the community – we have no intention of doing that.”
Rosewall has lost its state primary school and neighbouring high school, Flinders Peak Secondary College, in the past three years.
Cr Granger said a “modern” portable building could be a “mid-term” solution to the loss of the kindergarten.
“We could have booked the Hendy Street hall, too, but then again we would have had to spend quite a bit of money.”
Cr Granger said council had consulted “extensively with local families” before deciding on the Wathaurong option for temporary relocation.
More than 20 children would relocate to the North Geelong cooperatives indigenous kinder facility on Tuesday.
