Yarra Council orders Alphington Grammar to tear down its main gate and fencing

Yarra City Council has ordered a school to leave their front gate open to the public sparking fears for student safety.

Alphington Grammar School will have to remove their front entrance after an order from Yarra City Council. Picture: Tony Gough

Security guards have been placed at the entrance of a private school in Melbourne’s northeast after the council removed a gate blocking a public footpath.

Alphington Grammar School last week lost its fight with Yarra City Council to keep a gate across an entrance to the Darebin Creek via Old Heidelberg Road, which sits on the school’s land.

Extra CCTV cameras have also been trained on the school’s main entrance and students will be escorted between classrooms near the site of the gate over fears strangers could roam school grounds unchecked.

School staff and students held a rally in protest of the removal order on Tuesday, but the gate was removed on Tuesday afternoon.

Parents are outraged over the decision, which they say will put student and staff safety at risk after the gates were upgraded in 2003 when a six-year-old student was struck by a car and killed at the main entrance.

Sarah Baker, who has a daughter at the prep to Year 12 school, told the Herald Sun several parents feared children as young as three would be exposed to potential predators and traffic risks.

Students and principal Dr Vivianne Nikou in front of the Alphington Grammar School gate. Picture: Tony Gough

“We’re concerned about paedophiles, and drug and alcohol affected people. Members of the public could be interacting with the kids,” Ms Baker said.

“It’s just so scary to think that this is probably going to happen.

“People riding bikes and scooters through that school area would be endangering the lives of the young children.”

Parents’ concerns come after the Herald Sun revealed in April that police had responded to more than 1700 reports of intruders breaking into school grounds over the past four years.

In 2019, VicRoads rejected the path as the site for the off-road Alphington Link because it would “create a safety risk for all users throughout the day with children moving between school buildings”.

Principal Dr Vivianne Nikou said the school was reluctant to grant the public access to the path because several year levels were provided with personal alarms just before the pandemic after staff found “aggressive” members of the public inside student toilets.

“This is going to be a paedophile’s dream. Schools have always been targets for people who have got ill intentions,” she said

“With increased traffic, that’s an accident waiting to happen.”

A petition to keep the fence which has been in place for 70 years has garnered more than 500 signatures from the school community.

Yarra City Council mayor Sophie Wade said the council received more than 300 submissions to reopen the path, which sits on public land, before unanimously deciding to order the school to remove the fence in October last year.

“Council has run an extensive consultation process, and has received overwhelming community support for public pedestrian access to be restored.

“Yarra City Council has been working with Alphington Grammar School for several months to resolve this issue and has sent multiple letters to the school, advising them of the Council decision and the legal process outlined in the Local Government Act.”

Pupils and staff will on Tuesday hold a rally to protest against the order to remove the fence.

Originally published as Yarra Council orders Alphington Grammar to tear down its main gate and fencing