School site for garden

By Michelle Herbison
QUEENSCLIFF’S former high school site will host botanic gardens, according to a council plan.
The plan calls for exotic or indigenous plants or a combination of both on a sloping part of the site.
A flat area would remain open space under the proposed master plan.
Borough of Queenscliffe councillors have approved an application for $30,000 from State Government’s Community Faci-lities Funding Program to work on the design.
Council would contribute up to $30,000.
Cr David Mitchell said the community would maintain the gardens.
“It will be a working garden where people are actually engaged with getting their hands dirty.
“The garden should be a community initiative and involve the community in the design and workings. There will need to be a proper association formed.”
Cr Mitchell said the gardens idea came from a council-appointed, 10-member “open space strategy” community reference group.
The master plan design could also include toilets, a sheltered space, an outdoor kitchen, a storage area or a community facility.
Cr Mitchell said the reference group would make a decision on what kind of building would occupy the space during a final meeting early next month.
Councillors suggested at a meeting last week that project could call on the experience of Colac Otway Shire chief executive officer Rob Small in designing Geelong Botanic Gardens.
But Cr Mitchell said the borough would want its plan to involve less engineering so it could be maintenance-free if community interest waned.
“It needs to be more focussed on being a working garden and not like Princess or Citizens parks,” he said.
A report to council said the open space strategy’s key outcome would be “to encourage participation in passive and active forms of recreation and to create opportunities for social interaction”.
Borough chief executive officer Lenny Jenner said work could begin in the 2012/2013 financial year.
Residential developers bought 1.7ha of the site for $4.2million in 2006 after State Government amalgamated the former Queens-cliff High School with Bellarine Secondary College.