Uni puts eggs in one basket

DEVELOPMENT

THE University of Tasmania Strategic Plan 2019-24 says it has a five-year window to achieve an operating surplus of $30 million so it can renew its “very aged facilities” in Hobart. It says it only achieves a break-even result. This surprised me because UTAS seems to have a bottomless bucket of cash to buy CBD properties such as Fountainside $19 million, Midcity Hotel $26 million, Forestry Tas ex-headquarters $15 million and K&D site for $30 million. These are superb results for the vendors but I cannot think of any other Tasmanian business that could turn a profit after paying such amounts.

Richard Flanagan’s brilliant Talking Point on April 20 about his concerns on the CBD relocation says UTAS needed to demonstrate the move will benefit Hobartians. He was concerned the accommodation in Elizabeth St had created a dead zone. Unless UTAS can achieve a $30 million operating surplus it would appear most of Melville St could become an economic dead zone. The university appears to have been very successful in attracting international students and they require accommodation, but I hope it’s not putting too many eggs in one basket.

If courses and teaching spaces are not kept up, enrolments will drop off and they could be left with surplus accommodation. UTAS is expecting the population to decline even with migration, so local enrolments will probably follow suit. It was surprising to read in the strategic plan that use of teaching spaces is inefficient with use across all campuses of less than 20 per cent, often well below 10 per cent. Would it have been a more efficient use of UTAS millions to renovate and consolidate the Sandy Bay campus with surplus teaching space repurposed to accommodation? Mercury, then we need up-to-date data. If Andrew does think public transport is the answer, we could close the Southern Outlet to all traffic except buses as an experiment to see if public transport is the answer.

Nailed it

WELL done Polly, the cartoon has nailed the problem succinctly ( Mercury, August 9). Preaching to the deaf, though. The almighty yuan will win this time.

Got it in one

$UMMED up perfectly, Polly.