ACCCK - Petition For A Purpose Built Kindergarten Room
Attwood Child Care Centre and Kindergarten (ACCCK)
received a facilities upgrades grant from the Department of Education and Early
Childhood Development to extend the service to add on a new Kindergarten room
to cater for up to 22 children, this was to allow us to comply with the
universal access requirements which took effect in 2014.
We are currently a 45
place service which operates long day care and a four year old kindergarten
program, the kindergarten program is currently integrated into the long day
care room.
ACCCK is also a work base centre for the Department of
Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI) and as such have a priority placement
agreement with the centre. We are situated on DEPI grounds, which is Crown land.
The extension would allow ACCCK to provide a separate four
year old kindergarten program, which would then able us to offer the extra
hours required whilst also being able to provide more four year old
kindergarten places to the community.
A planning permit was submitted, the Melbourne Airport objected to our permit as we are situated under the flight path, they were concerned that if we increased the capacity of the centre then this could potentially lead to an increase in complaints made from families and staff of the noise from the airport traffic as the airport traffic will increase over the next 20 years. They appeared to be negotiable and asked us tooutsource an acoustics assessment report so we could amend or building plans to ensure the new building would meet the Australian Noise Exposure Forecast (ANEF) as the land falls within the Melbourne Airport Environs Overlay NO.1 (MAEO1) control as well as meeting the Australian standards to comply with AS2021 for noise attenuation. The report stated yes the building would be able to meet with the standards, therefore we assumed Melbourne Airport would accept these conditions.
We have now been verbally advised that Hume Council consider a permit is required under the Melbourne Airport Environs Overlay, and they are likely to refuse the application at the Council Meeting held on the 22nd of September 2014, taking a risk based approach because of the advice provided by the Melbourne Airport in their response to the Section 52 referral
Attwood Child Care Centre and Kindergarten has been operating as a long day care centre since 1994, with a registered four year old kindergarten program since 1998. The centre has been situated in the same location for the past 20 years and is highly regarded within the community. The centre underwent its assessment and validation process in November 2013 and received an overall rating of “Exceeds National Quality Standard”.
If you believe that our local community needs more high quality four year old kindergarten places then share this link with all your friends/ families and community members to support our fight by signing our petition.
We thank you in advance for your support.
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