THE LATEST! On the Western Springs Site: The kindergarten has multiple reservations about the Western Springs site and is currently working through them. These reservations include the fact the Western Springs site is not located within the Pt Chevalier community it is our mission to serve; and the probability the $1 million cost of relocation would fall entirely on a community organisation with no allocated funds to cover an unexpected cost of this quantity. We are concerned that Western Bays schooling is going to be reorganised substantially and the Western Springs site will be a big part of this, meaning sizeable but unknown changes on that site, and a consequentially uncertain outcome for a kindergarten that moved there. We are concerned also by a geotechnical report (given to us by the Ministry of Education) suggesting that the building of a small shed on the Western Springs site required the construction of a system to direct gas, rising from the refuse fill beneath the shed, to a high point where it could be collected and transported to a safe location for disposal. As a consequence of this we sent questions to the Ministry of Education in July regarding the safety of the site for small children. The questions were as follows: 1. The report could be read as implying that gas leakage upwards from the refuse could be a risk to children in a kindergarten. Is this so? 2. If so, what are the dimension of this risk? 3. Would the risk endure for the lifetime of the kindergarten? 4. Would the risk be manageable? 5. How would one manage the risk? 6. What would be the costs of managing it? We received no written answers to these questions, but have been invited recently to meet with Ministry of Education officials to discuss our concerns, and will be doing so in the near future.
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 23:57:35 +0000