The Forest High, Frenchs Forest: New site for relocated school revealed

Authorities have confirmed the new location of a high school to be demolished to make way for the long-awaited swanky new town centre to accompany Northern Beaches Hospital.

The site of the controversial relocation of a northern beaches high school to make way for a new town centre has been revealed.

Authorities have confirmed that The Forest High at Frenchs Forest will be bulldozed and a new school will be built on the abandoned former Cerebral Palsy Alliance HQ at the top of Allambie Rd.

Senior local government and NSW Government sources said the school will move to the site — about 2km from the existing location on the border of Frenchs Forest and Allambie Heights — as part of the long-awaited Frenchs Forest Priority Precinct.

The old HQ, known as McLeod House, is on Crown Land.

It is understood the Precinct Plan, with details of the school’s move, will be released for public submissions later this week.

A section of the derelict McLeod House on the Cerebral Palsy Alliance grounds at Allambie Heights, which will be the site of the new school. Picture: Jim O'Rourke

In October last year the Manly Daily reported that rumours had been swirling that the school would move to the site of the former CPA headquarters, McLeod House.

A source told the Manly Daily the site was a good location, as it was slightly nearer Manly which does not currently have a co-ed comprehensive school since the one at Beacon Hill closed.

“It works better being slightly closer to Manly,” the source said, who also praised Mayor Michael Regan for identifiying the site.

The future of the school had been at the centre of speculation since it was first mooted, in 2010, that the NSW Government wanted to rezone a section of Frenchs Forest, that includes the Northern Beaches Hospital.

That precinct, which included a new town centre, would allow medium density residential areas with shoptop apartment blocks up to 12 storeys or 40 metres in height.

There was also speculation that the school would relocate to the sports ground — built on an old council tip — next to the Warringah Aquatic Centre, but state planning officials ruled that out last year amid concerns that the land may subside and that it would prove too costly to make work.

Northern Beaches Council has been in talks with the NSW Government over the rezoning of part of Frenchs Forest to create a new town centre next to the hospital, which includes more than 4300 high-density homes, to be built by 2040.

Frenchs Forest hospital plan rezoning artists impressions.

But residents and developers have been waiting on the Department of Planning to release the final draft plan for the town centre since March 2018. The first draft was exhibited in 2016 after authorities first mooted the idea in 2010.

The hold-up was about finding a new location for the school.

In February the NSW Planning Department said it was still working, with the support of the Education Department, to “procure a site in the (school) catchment area to relocate The Forest High School and allow plans for Frenchs Forest Town Centre to proceed to public exhibition”.

Then in the NSW Government's 2021-22 Budget, released in June, it was revealed that money had been set aside to pay for the school’s relocation.

Frenchs Forest hospital plan rezoning artists impressions.

In June the Education Department said, while not revealing details of the move, that “the relocation of The Forest High School will deliver new fit for purpose learning spaces and core facilities”.

It also said School Infrastructure NSW was “investigating the costs and benefits, spatial requirements of upgrades, and how they might fit within the wider Frenchs Forest community.

“A Project Reference Group has been established that includes architects, planners and design professionals, and representatives from the Department of Education, The Forest High School and the P & C.”

One local source who has seen the plans said it was a “developers paradise”.