Brindabella Christian College agrees to remove two demountable buildings

Brindabella Christian College has agreed to disconnect and permanently remove two unapproved demountable buildings from its Lyneham campus after the school reform group took action in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The college has until the start of Term 1 next year to remove the buildings or ACAT will issue a Controlled Activity Order for the ACT Government to do so by the start of the next school holidays.

It will also have to provide within 60 days a full set of updated plans showing all existing buildings to the Community for Constitutional Reform at Brindabella Christian College (Reform BCC) and the ACT Planning Authority.

Reform BCC went to ACAT on Thursday (22 August) to force the college to comply with two conditions of a 2016 approval for the construction of a two-storey classroom block after Access Canberra refused to do so through a Controlled Activity Order.

The school had been told its demountable Block C had to be permanently disconnected from all utilities and removed from the site before an occupancy certificate was issued for its new junior school building.

Representors to the 2016 DA were concerned about increasing congestion around the school and that the college would continue to use the demountables to grow enrolments.

But no enforcement action was taken, despite Reform BCC providing photos that showed the block had only been relocated 100 metres away to the southeast corner and recommissioned.

Block C was in use from 2019 until April this year.

Reform BCC said the condition to remove the demountables was to ensure those students using them moved into the new building and the college could not use the extra capacity to increase enrolments.

But the ACT school census figures show enrolments have increased markedly since 2018 when the new building was occupied.

Reform BCC said in a statement that the college’s failure to comply with the conditions of the 2016 approval had left doubts over the accuracy of its site plans and raised issues of general safety and fire management.

“The fact they weren’t complied with has left a legacy of inaccurate and incomplete drawings being relied upon by government entities such as ICON, ACTEW and TCCS, as well as the Fire Engineer in subsequent approvals and assessments, and the school potentially over-occupying the campus, resulting in the school community being uncertain about the school’s compliance, safety and adequacy of services and facilities,” the spokesperson said.

Reform BCC called upon the ACT Government to look closely at the company behind the school, Brindabella Christian Education Limited, and once all plans were provided, take steps to assure the school community that the college was fully compliant.

It said there were still demountable buildings (Building 5) along Brigalow Street that had stop work orders slapped on them in July 2023 because they were installed without building approval.

Reform BCC said to the best of its knowledge, a building approval application had still not been lodged.

College board chair Greg Zwajgenberg said in a statement: “We are pleased with the outcome of our removing the two unoccupied demountable classrooms in question based on satisfying technical arguments, as suggested by us to the ACAT Member as the better solution, despite their being reviewed by WorkSafe as being in excellent condition.

“Reform BCC, who have absolutely nothing to do with our college, had wanted ACAT to rule on removing half of the entire school which consists of demountable classrooms.

“This would have set a dangerous precedent for all schools and especially public schools in ACT, New South Wales and Victoria, who like us, rely heavily on demountable classrooms.”

The ACAT hearing was the latest episode for the controversial private school. It has been in the headlines for years over its governance, financial issues, unpaid super and car park construction, the latter still being a matter before the ACT Supreme Court.

This month its principal Keturah Jones resigned. Ms Jones was replaced by Suzanne Power, who had previously been acting principal from 2019 to 2021. She is the seventh person to fill the role in nine years since longtime principal Elizabeth Hutton departed in 2015.