THE Sacred Heart Parish Primary School has purchased a neighbouring block to develop into a green space for students, while also preserving the block’s large existing trees.
Facilities and WHS manager at Catholic Education Wilcannia-Forbes, Sam McCarthy, said the purchase of the block was made possible through the school’s funding body, Catholic Schools NSW, which has 18 schools in its diocese.
“It covers 53% of the state and Broken Hill was the only school that had no green space whatsoever for the kids,” Mr McCarthy said.
“So that really highlighted something we needed to deal with”.
Mr McCarthy said he had inquired regarding the purchase of various blocks around town, but had little luck at first.
“Most of them are derelict, nothing came from it for a long time. But from our inquiries the Bush Church Australia people, who owned the Bush Church or Bush Hostel, became interested because they really had no other way of off-loading that property,” he said.
Whilst the parish also owns other land in town, the green space needed to be next to the school, making the block an ideal fit.
“It doesn’t make sense that the kids would have to walk to an oval,” Mr McCarthy said.
Mr McCarthy said Broken Hill Council were very supportive of their plans to demolish and develop the block into a green space.
“The only stipulation was that the front rendered brick wall that runs the whole length of the school and Bush Church had to stay in place and those two front trees were not allowed to be touched in any way whatsoever,” he said.
“They’re beautiful, big, significant trees. So, we’re more than happy to do that, and it really gives us a great barrier for what we will end up developing behind”.
