SAVE Sunvale campaigners have written to the state government calling for immediate action to preserve the former primary school site as open land.
The group wants the government to honour a pre-election commitment to implement a Sunvale Community Park initiative.
“Sunshine is a community with special needs and with a shortage of basic community infrastructure such as open space and active recreation facilities,” it wrote.
Save Sunvale members John Hedditch and Sean Spencer have been calling for the site to be kept as open space since 2010 when the Education Department announced plans to offload the property.
A merger with Sunshine East and Braybrook primary schools to form Sunshine Harvester Primary led to Sunvale’s last pupils leaving in September 2009.
Mr Hedditch said he welcomed opportunities for partnerships between governments and the community to finance the site’s transformation.
As reported by the Weekly in March, two designs have been drawn up. One proposes that half the site be used as parkland, with the other half zoned for residential use.
The group’s preferred option is for the whole site to be rezoned for open space. Last May, Brimbank Council made an offer for the western portion of the Sunvale site.
A spokesman for Education Minister Martin Dixon said the site had been declared surplus to educational requirements and had been included in the department’s disposal program.
