“I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way”. Whitney Houston was onto something.
There is now overwhelming research indicating that early learning is a vital in childhood development.
The South Australian Government has initiated a Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care to investigate what can be done to better support families in South Australia. Premier Malinauskas has previously said he intends to extend universal access to pre-school to include three-year-olds. This mirrors Victoria’s policy, with New South Wales and the ACT also making similar moves.
Why then, does the planning system in South Australia make it so hard to get an Early Learning Centre approved?
We have been recently helping get approval for a new ELC near a school’s existing campus. The school engaged architects, traffic consultants, environmental specialists, acoustic engineers, waste specialists, landscape designers and URPS to provide detailed information in support of the proposal.
The site is in a General Neighbourhood Zone on a flat piece of vacant land with the proposed carpark located on the opposite side of a local street. Despite being an anticipated land use in the Zone, the application required public consultation, referral to DIT and the EPA, and determination by the Council Assessment Panel because only two neighbours were concerned about traffic. Then the representors didn’t show up to the CAP meeting. The CAP members were very complementary of the proposal when granting approval.
It took more than 17 weeks to assess this application even after all the detailed work done by the design team. This seems to be a similar story for numerous ELCs.
If our community is serious about early learning for children being so important, is the planning system helping?
Are planners doing all we can to give young children every opportunity to succeed?
