Shadow Treasurer and Tarneit MP Tim Pallas has thrown Save Sunvale campaigners a lifeline by pledging – if it’s in his power – to buy back the former primary school site and turn it into a park.
Mr Pallas was at the Neil Street site last week to announce that, if elected, a Labor state government would attempt to buy back the 0.8-hectare section that the Coalition sold for
$4.2 million to a private developer last month.
“This is really the last opportunity for this community to get public open space, an area of clearly demonstrated need,” Mr Pallas said.
A Labor government closed the primary school in September, 2009, and residents have been campaigning to turn it into public open space ever since.
Before the last state election, Liberal MP Bernie Finn pointed to every corner of the property and said it would be returned for community use.
Brimbank council bought 1.1 hectares for $3 million in March to turn it into a public park. The rest of the property remained in the hands of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development until it was sold in June. But the state government is yet to sign off on the deal.
“If contracts are signed by this government in direct breach to this community, we will enter into negotiations with the developer to seek to, by agreement, return this land to uses that the community want and that the government, in opposition, gave a clear commitment to this community they would get,” Mr Pallas said.
Asked by Star Weekly whether a Labor government would be willing to pay more than $4.2 million, a spokesman for Opposition leader Daniel Andrews said it would be willing to negotiate with the developer, but he could not go into further detail.
Friends of Sunvale Community Park co-convenor John Hedditch said environmental reports showed the site might be contaminated from the nearby quarry and therefore unsuitable for residential development.
He said Mr Pallas’s announcement was a “welcome step forward.”
