State Member for Wallsend, Ms Sonia Hornery MP, has welcomed the news that Callaghan College Jesmond Campus will be upgraded to increase capacity in the next 4 years, but schools with large infrastructure backlogs look set to miss out on urgent work.
In March the State Government listed schools right across the Hunter which had a maintenance backlog of more than $1million. These schools were supposedly listed for urgent works but not a single school from the Wallsend electorate was included.
In the Wallsend electorate there are 24 schools with outstanding maintenance requests totalling more than $10 million.
Everything from toilet block upgrades, carpet replacements, fixing damaged roofs, to replacing windows have been put on hold.
Quotes attributable to Member for Wallsend, Sonia Hornery
“It is great news that Callaghan College at Jesmond will be upgraded to increase capacity and provide improved environments for learning and teaching.”
“But I am very disappointed that the Government has once again ignored my calls to fix the schools that are in need of urgent maintenance.”
“We have a Government that is keen to build new schools but is not fixing the schools we already have. We have schools with maintenance backlogs of more than $1million and the amounts continue to increase.”
“But this does not seem to be a priority for the Government.”
“The Budget will be handed down tomorrow and Wallsend will again miss out on desperately needed funds.”
“The Wallsend electorate needs a commitment from the Minister on basic infrastructure, including a committed plan to address the maintenance backlog at local schools.”
“The Minister must act on this backlog immediately.”