Goodstart Edmonton: Toddler death childcare centre building’s new chapter
A permanent full stop has been marked against a Cairns childcare centre building where a toddler was found dead in a mini-van earlier this year.
Cairns
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cairns. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A PERMANENT full stop has been marked against a Cairns childcare centre building where a toddler was found dead in a mini-van this year.
Tragedy struck the Goodstart Early Learning centre in Edmonton when three-year-old Maliq (Meeky) Nicholas Floyd Namok-Malamoo’s lifeless body was discovered in one of the centre’s vehicles in February.
Two people have been charged with manslaughter over the incident.
The centre was previously the St Therese’s School, which relocated to Bentley Park in 1995.
The site’s owner, the Roman Catholic Trust Corporation for the Diocese of Cairns, has lodged plans to close the book on the site’s tragic stint as a childcare centre.
MORE NEWS
Huge Cairns subdivision nobody knows about
New subdivisions facing death by dehydration
Watch: Esplanade’s $28m transformation
A new development application before Cairns Regional Council proposes to transform the facility into an educational establishment for secondary-aged students with special needs.
“Through an exhaustive process, the applicants have identified the subject land suitable to complement their existing campuses within the Cairns region,” the document states. “Enrolments for the premises have been forecasted to be in the vicinity of 60-80 students with potential capacity of the campus not exceeding 95 students.
“Up to 10 staff will be onsite at any one time.”
The campus would retain and use all existing buildings with only minor internal building works proposed.
The Cairns diocese covers 377,000sq km from Cardwell in the south, west to the Northern Territory border including the Atherton Tablelands, and north to the Torres Strait Islands and Gulf of Carpentaria.
It takes in 29 Catholic schools and colleges with almost 11,000 students — more than 6200 in primary and 4500 in secondary.
“The proposed development is of a nature that will not impact on adjoining properties or the locality and will not have any significant impacts on the infrastructure, environment or community of the surrounding commercial or nearby sensitive land uses,” the proposal states.
Court date nigh
The pair charged with manslaughter over the death of Maliq (Meeky) Nicholas Floyd Namok-Malamoo face a committal mention next week after having had their bail extended in June.
Co-accused Dionne Grills, 34, and Michael Lewis, 45, were not required to appear when their legal teams last fronted the Cairns Magistrates Court to identify outstanding items from the brief of evidence.
In both cases, forensic DNA results, GIS mapping, a timeline, pathology statements and three police statements were yet to be submitted. The pair were remanded for committal mention on August 12
Originally published as Goodstart Edmonton: Toddler death childcare centre building’s new chapter