The Church Street Children’s Centre in West Footscray faces an extended closure while Maribyrnong council develops plans to demolish and rebuild the centre.
Star Weekly last month reported that a planned redevelopment, due to be completed by next month, had languished since mid-year after “a range of structural issues” were discovered by the builder early into the works.
Maribyrnong council staff last week briefed councillors on the situation and Maribyrnong mayor Catherine Cumming said the councillors wanted to see the centre entirely rebuilt.
“There will be a report coming to council early next year and we’re hoping it will give us some direction on this,” she said.
“I don’t want to throw good money after bad. This gives us a great opportunity to relook at the site rather than try to do a fitout of a building that has structural problems.”
Council chief executive Stephen Wall and community services director Clem Gillings have both blamed bad advice from the project architect and engineer for the project grinding to a halt, but Cr Cumming said that, in its bid to save money, the council had played a central part in the failure.
“The council was not given the opportunity to look at building a new centre. In hindsight, it should have been looked at at the same time,” she said. “Then you could have looked at the cost of building a whole new centre and made some decisions based on that.”
Rebuilding the childcare centre could push the completion date out by as much as two years, forcing families who use the service to continue using the Maribyrnong Community Centre where they have been since July. Ms Gillings said council staff would continue to meet with the Church Street Centre management committee and staff on a regular basis and provide ongoing updates to all families using the service.
Meanwhile, councillors last week voted to release a confidential report that was used to justify the permanent closure of Footscray’s Empire Street Early Learning Centre.
Cr Sarah Carter said the release of the report provided transparency for families on the reasoning behind the decision, which was made behind closed doors in July.
