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Parents at a rapidly growing Brisbane state primary school are asking the Queensland government to carve a chunk out of a nearby 7.1-hectare land parcel for a second school that they say has been long promised.
The West End State School P&C delivered an open letter on Sunday night, calling for the government’s development authority to seize a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to master-plan educational infrastructure for Brisbane’s inner-south.
In late May, State Development Minister Jarrod Bleijie announced the Montague Road Precinct was among four “provisional priority development areas” declared across Brisbane.
This included the former Visy site, now owned by the state government, and the recently closed milk factory, sold by dairy firm Lactalis to propery developers Stockwell.
On Monday morning, parents and students gathered alongside community members outside WESS with banners and placards, drawing attention to the community campaign.
The families were among several inner-south grassroots organisations circling the state-owned riverside land with calls for community infrastructure.
The Visy site was at one point earmarked for a foreign press centre during the 2032 Olympic Games, but announced as a development site open to bids for private housing last year.
P&C president Vanessa Bertagnole said the Education Department had previously planned a new primary school for Brisbane’s inner-west, but had never secured land for the project.
“If they’re planning all these dwellings without the school, then what is their plan?” she said. “They might have to resume homes.”
“It would be very contentious if that were the case, especially given that they’ve got seven hectares of public land available on the peninsula at the moment to use for this purpose.”
The P&C – representing some 2700 parents – pointed to growing enrolment pressures at WESS as an impasse that would stifle population growth, or greatly impact students’ ability to learn.
“Our catchment already faces acute development pressure, which the Montague Road Precinct PPDA will substantially accelerate,” the letter read.
The latest catchment data indicated 94.1 per cent of local primary-school-aged children were WESS students.
Using 2021 Census data, the letter gave a “conservative estimate” that 700 to 800 additional students would join the catchment from new developments – including about 8,000 apartments already approved by the council.
Bertagnole said the P&C’s bid was not about stopping new housing in West End and its adjoining suburbs.
“We know families want to move in here … we all want to live here for the same reasons: it’s a great place to live,” she said.
“It’s just that we need the infrastructure to support it, and one of the things we definitely don’t have is another school.”
Parents and alumni from Brisbane State High School delivered their own letter to Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek in November last year also asking for a bite of the Visy site.
An Education Department spokesperson said WESS had sufficient capacity.
“Strategies are in place to cater for existing and forecast future enrolments in the short to medium term,” the spokesperson said.
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