Pembroke School wins approval for glass-covered footbridge over Shipsters Rd

A NEW design for an elite Adelaide private school’s glass-covered footbridge has been approved, paving the way for work to start on its $25 million campus upgrade.

Artist impression of the revised design for the footbridge, part of Pembroke School's $25 million upgrade

• Pembroke’s $25m upgrade approved
• Elite Adelaide private school to expand middle school campus
• SA’s elite schools keeping up with the college next door
• Seymour College’s $30 million upgrade
• Backflip on ban on PAC displaying logo on footbridge

A NEW design for a glass-covered footbridge over Shipsters Rd has been approved, paving the way for Pembroke School to start work on a $25 million campus upgrade.

The State Planning Commission last month signed off the bridge, which will link Pembroke’s middle-years campus to its proposed science, technology and arts centre at the site of the old Kensington Centre special school.

The commission approved the project in April, but asked the Kensington Park school to delay construction until it tweaked the footbridge design to better suit the character of nearby buildings.

The original design for Pembroke’s footbridge/

The original grey, fully-enclosed bridge design has been replaced with glass, which will be illuminated with LED lighting.

Pembroke School principal Luke Thompson was pleased the “stunning” footbridge had been given the green light.

But he would not be drawn on a start date for major works, saying only that the school was “completing planning for the finer details of the project and the timing of the build”.

Demolition work has started at the special school site, which Pembroke bought for $4 million in 2015.

The new Shipsters Rd building is part of Pembroke’s wider plan to increase the size of its middle-school campus as it shifts its major intake from Year 7 to Year 8.

The move would increase the R-12 school’s student numbers by about 100, to 1680, by 2020.

The campus will expand to the old Kensington Centre special school, on the western side of Shipsters Rd, which Pembroke bought for $4 million in 2015.