Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison said the State Government has been tardy in providing school infrastructure in the electorate and said she will continue to advocate for new schools.
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Ms Aitchison was responding to the government spending more than $25m for the improvement and expansion of three Maitland schools under its $6 billion school building program.
The Education Department said $12m of improvements have been undertaken at Bolwarra and major works are ongoing at Rutherford Public but did not disclose funding.
The latest development at Ashtonfield is currently in planning with $14m to be spent on improvements to address enrolment demand and deliver 11 classrooms.
Mrs Aitchison said the 2019-2020 budget said no figures were available for Ashtonfield, $11.2m was spent to the end of June 2019 at Bolwarra, $1.2m was allocated for Bolwarra during 2019-2020 financial year and to June 30 2019 $9.8m had been spent at Rutherford. The allocation for Rutherford in 2019-2020 is $10.2m, for an estimated total spend of $23m.
"A lot of schools are expanding their building footprint but no new schools," Mrs Aitchison said. "It's often not congruent with other buildings with the ratio of classrooms, canteens, amenities not maintained."
She said two sites were earmarked by the government for education facilities. "They gave up on both. They chose not to go ahead with Aberglasslyn and failed to lodge a bid in time for land at Gillieston Heights."
