DEPARTMENT of Education-owned land at Lake Cathie should be preserved as an ecological site, a progress association believes.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The long-awaited Lake Cathie primary school will be built just south of the village.
That means the Department of Education and Communities will sell a parcel of land at the corner of Ocean Drive and Fiona Crescent in accordance with NSW Treasury guidelines.
It is understood the department has owned the Ocean Drive land for many years.
Lake Cathie Progress Association secretary Jack Jones said the association and a number of environmental groups wanted the department-owned land in Ocean Drive to remain as an ecological site.
Mr Jones said the land was home to koalas and all sorts of other species, plus it acted as a wildlife corridor through to the wetlands.
The progress association will pursue the issue with the state government and Port Macquarie-Hastings Council in the new year.
Meanwhile, the organisation supports the Area 14 school location.
The progress association hopes the addition of a school will have an economic spin-off.
“Hopefully the school will attract more residents into Area 14 itself,” Mr Jones said.
“The school will add another attraction to the Area 14 housing development.”
A push for a school at Lake Cathie dates back decades.
Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams recently announced the public school would be built on the eastern side of Ocean Drive, just south of the Houston Mitchell Drive intersection, within a planned new urban area known as Area 14.
The Department of Education and Communities has reached an agreement to buy the 3.55ha site earmarked for the school.
Concept designs are in progress.
The school is on track to open for the first term of 2015.