Principals pull out all the 'leaking' stops to convince education minister to co-locate
Education Minister Chris Hipkins tours Marlborough Girls' College and talks to staff about his review of the co-located colleges project.
Damp and smelly rooms, a leaking library, cracks in the walls and a technology block with, wait for it, blackboards and chalk.
Has a tour of Blenheim's two high schools been enough to convince the education minister to press ahead with co-location? Well, maybe.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins visited Marlborough Boys' and Marlborough Girls' Colleges on Friday and although he doubled down on his plans to review the $63 million co-location project, he also said "nothing has been put on hold".
"It's actually the opposite of that ... I asked the ministry to look at all the options to get this process moving again," Hipkins said.
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"The colleges may end up on a new site or they may not. We will know that over the next few weeks and months. I think this process has taken long enough already."
Marlborough Boys' College's 82-year-old 'O' Block has gained cracks in the walls since the 7.8-magnitude earthquake and is at 38 per cent of the building code.
At Marlborough Boys' College on Stephenson St, principal Wayne Hegarty showed Hipkins the 82-year-old 'O' Block.
The concrete and timber building sat at 38 per cent of the building code with large cracks in the walls from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in 2016.
"We paid $5300 this term for eight different callouts for plumbing," Hegarty told Hipkins.
Marlborough Boys' College principal Wayne Hegarty, left, has been told it is cheaper to build new classrooms than knock down the concrete walls of "single-celled" classrooms like this one.
"Pipes are bursting here and bursting there, and they're always bursting at 3am."
Hegarty said he inquired about knocking out the concrete walls of several small "single-celled" classrooms upstairs to create a more flexible learning space, but was told it would be cheaper just to build new classrooms.
"The buildings are all of different ages and they all have different issues," Hegarty said.
Some of the buildings at Marlborough Boys' College are leaking.
There was only one indoor gymnasium and it was leaking, he told Hipkins.
"For the library, we were discussing putting a tarpaulin over it as a sort of El Cheapo way of dealing with leaks."
The technology building, once part of the Delta air force base on Waihopai Valley Rd in the 1940s, still had blackboards and chalk.
Marlborough Girls' College board chairman Bernie Rowe, left, shows Education Minister Chris Hipkins the college's leaky buildings, with the help of principal Mary-Jeanne Lynch, and Marlborough Mayor John Leggett.
"Everywhere you go here, there's history. How do you transfer the history on the walls here onto another site?" Hegarty said.
"One of your ministry people did say we could take the stained glass window."
Marlborough Boys' College board of trustees co-deputy chairwoman Lynette Rayner said some staff opposed the plan to co-locate the colleges side-by-side on a new greenfield site when it was announced in 2015.
Most of Marlborough Girls' College's buildings, built in the 90s, have plumping issues, faulty wiring or seismic issues.
"There are staff that want to stay here, but a very small group of staff. Originally it was a large number but once they got out with their peers to see what's available, you could feel the change in their tone.
"Out of a staff of 65, probably 60-odd teachers support it now. At first, it was more like 70/30."
Over at the Marlborough Girls' College, principal Mary-Jeanne Lynch said almost every building on the McLauchlan St campus had ongoing issues.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins visits Marlborough to kickstart a review of the colleges' co-location project.
"And these are issues that are pretty significant," Lynch said.
The careers room was damp and "smelly", but was still being used as there were no other suitable rooms. It had to be checked regularly for mould, Lynch said.
The science and technology classrooms, built in the 90s, had internal guttering that leaked.
Some buildings had faulty wiring, and some needed earthquake strengthening, Lynch said.
"People say this is a beautiful school. But what they don't see is the stuff that's going on behind the walls," Lynch told Hipkins.
"We're doing our best and we just keep repairing things."
The community preferred co-location, Lynch said.
"Co-location is about having the best of both worlds. It can be whatever you want it to be. It's got to reflect what the community wants and we can actually make it work both ways with co-location.
"And if you want to modify the buildings to have different learning spaces and skill-based education, then it's extremely difficult to do that with our current buildings, and extremely expensive."
The principals had "made the case" for co-location "very strongly", Hipkins said.
He would not be consulting the public again on that point, saying it was clear the community preferred co-location.
"I don't want to go back to the drawing board," Hipkins said.
"The main thing is securing a site. So we're continuing to explore the possibility of a greenfield site and updating the costs involved. We know from experience, with the co-location of Avonside Girls' and Shirley Boys' in Christchurch that it will probably cost more than what was initially budgeted.
"We also talked to the [Marlborough District] council, which has offered its help with finding a site."
But if a greenfield site could not be found, the ministry would have to consider other options, Hipkins said.
"I don't want to see this drag on forever. The local community has waited long enough. It's been about five years and I really want to see some action."
Mayor John Leggett, who hosted Hipkins' tour, said it was encouraging to hear the process was progressing "without delay".
Leggett had suggested to Hipkins several potential sites for co-location, he said.
"Council will continue to play a strategic planning role in the ministry's future discussions and proposals. I'm confident we have value to add," Leggett said.
"There is no doubt at all that we need this investment in our secondary education facilities and that Marlborough deserves it. As everyone knows, some of our college buildings and facilities are well past their best.
"It is important to remember, however, that the final say on the future of a combined college for Marlborough lies firmly with central Government."
- The Marlborough Express
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