School cancels annual display

Rain and project delays have ruined a Christmas tradition.

Rain and project delays have ruined a Christmas tradition.

IT is the BER project that has stolen Christmas. Though in this instance, fault lies with Melbourne's fickle weather rather than bureaucratic incompetence.

St Mary's Catholic Primary School in Melbourne's northern suburb of Thornbury has for the past 10 years hosted a real-life nativity display called "Walk Through Bethlehem".

The event, which attracts more than 40,000 visitors, recreates a street in Bethlehem and includes the sounds and smells of the manger, with live camels and farm animals, the three kings and of course, Mary, Joseph and a baby Jesus. It costs organisers thousands of dollars and involves hundreds of hours of work from volunteers who play parts and help build the set.

But the usual location of the display is now behind a construction fence as the school's Building the Education Revolution project has not yet been finished. The $2million project, comprising classrooms, a library and some computer rooms has been delayed due to Melbourne's recent bad weather and heavy rains.

"It was supposed to be finished last week but unfortunately it has not been finished and we are in big trouble," said organiser Virgilio Marciano. "It was too short notice to organise to do the event somewhere else. They said it would be finished a month ago but they said one week then another week then another week."

Mr Marciano said many people in the community helped out in providing props and children would be very disappointed by not being able to have the Christmas display.

He said he would be out of pocket as they had already paid deposits to hire the camels, donkeys and other animals.

"Unfortunately we will miss out this year," he said.

Given the findings of Brad Orgill's review of the BER released this week, Mr Marciano can count himself unlucky.

Although Victoria is well behind in its implementation of school building projects, Victorian Catholic schools have been a model of BER efficiency.

The BER Implementation Taskforce report found only 23per cent of Victorian government primary school projects were completed by September this year. In contrast, Catholic school projects in Victoria took on average less than half the time to commence and attracted far fewer complaints.