Waiting for Cosgrove upgrade
‘Students and parents let down’
LABOR has criticised the state government’s timing around promised upgrades to a northern suburbs high school, but the education department says progress was affected by a major fire in 2020.
A $20m redevelopment of Cosgrove High was promised in 2020, and a masterplan was released in June last year.
For 15-year-old Zeke Lockley, who is in year 10 this year, the upgrades won’t be complete during his time at the school. “Probably not, but I’m hopeful my younger brother gets to see it, he’s nine,” Zeke said.
Zeke’s father Jamie Lockley remembered when parents were invited to provide input on the redevelopment, but said the project “dropped off the map”. “There’s been no mention of anything,” he said.
“It was 2018, Zeke would have been in grade five at Rosetta Primary.”
Mr Lockley said he believed his son would have benefited from a redeveloped school.
“They were going to have chill out zones … Zeke being a special needs student would have benefited from a little space. More hands-on stuff was promised too, that would have been great for Zeke.
“They were going to have a prayer room for religious kids.”
Labor’s education spokesman Josh Willie said parents and students were being let down. “Five years on, all that has been completed is a preliminary masterplan, with some aspects now being revised due to increasing costs,” Mr Willie said.
“After last year’s budget pushed the anticipated completion date out to 2025, it now appears the project will not even commence until the 2023-24 financial year.”
A Department of Education spokesman said the redevelopment of Cosgrove High School was affected by a fire in 2020.
“Progress on the redevelopment of Cosgrove High School was significantly impacted by a fire that destroyed B Block in late-2020, which required site remediation works and significant rescoping work for the project,” they said.
“The site master plan for Cosgrove was developed last year and, since that time, revisions to the scope of works have been required during the design process as a result of increasing construction costs and the nature of the existing site infrastructure. We are getting on with delivering this project and the new Glenorchy Child and Family Learning Centre, which is expected to commence construction this year.”