Back to the drawing board

By Tania Martin
YARRA Ranges Council has been sent back to the drawing board on its plan to fix Birmingham Primary School’s parking dilemma.
For more than 10-years the school has been battling parking congestion.
In March, the Mail reported how angry and frustrated parents who were being booked while waiting to pick up their children from school could soon see an end to their 10-year plight.
At the time, the council visited the school to discuss the ongoing issues with parking at both pick-up and drop-off times.
But Billanook Ward councillor Tim Heenan said the problems could be far from resolved, following a lack of State Government support.
He said the project would need to be reassessed with the government only agreeing to put in $18,000.
The council allocated $155,000 in its 2010-11 draft budget and hoped the State Government would at least match the amount.
“We had hope to gain at least $100,000 for the project,” Cr Heenan said.
“This is really disappointing. We will now have to go back and re-look at everything.”
Cr Heenan said the original plan was to reconfigure the whole top part of the car park which included changing the zoning from no standing to no parking, so that parents would not be booked while waiting in the pick-up lane.
He said this could still be done but plans to resurface the bottom part of the car park would have to be reassessed.
Cr Heenan said the council would still have to look at putting some sort of formal spaces with line marking but the cost of the resurfacing would have to be looked at again.
“We will have to look at it all again,” he said.
“But for now the top priority will be providing a safe crossing for children from Francis Crescent to the school.”
“It’s very disappointing and I can’t understand why we were not able to get more money but the shire will again be picking up the can,” Cr Heenan said.
Evelyn MP Christine Fyffe has called on the Education Minister to re-think the decision and allocate more cash.
“It’s disappointing that the Education Department has not allocated enough funds to assist in resolving a long-term pick-up and drop off problem at Birmingham Primary School,” she said.
But a State Government spokesman has defended the move saying the council had agreed to construct a footpath along the western side of Francis Crescent.
He said the council was providing funding because it was a project for the whole community, not just for the students.
“The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development will explore funding sources for shared cost for the construction of a footpath along the southern boundary of Birmingham Primary School to Stubbs Avenue,” the spokesman said.
“This will give families an alternative option to drop off and pick up their children from these other streets and reduce the traffic problem in front of the school.”
The spokesman said after these work had been completed a review of the traffic issues would be undertaken.