Warnings over flooded St Helens school infrastructure ignored

St Helens Disctrict High School Association chair Nick Martin said he raised concerns with the department about the need to rebuild the school's drainage infrastructure and install air conditioners last year.

He said the school has flooded several times in the past, despite efforts to improve drainage.

"We've done everything in our power, we've put in drains, bigger gutters, everything .. but it all goes down to a 70 mm pipe," he said.

"All the piping underneath the school is non-compliant, this is our major issue.

"It's too small, doesn't cope, doesn't handle it."

He said he spoke to the Education Department about why the major works on the drainage under the school had not been done.

He said he was told that the school needed to make such a large funding request in its capital works submission.

"Well I said there hasn't been a capital works submission that we've been able to do since before COVID.

"How do you expect schools infrastructure to stand up and be rectified when there's no submission program - the government hasn't released it."

Lyons Labor MHA Jen Butler said the floods showed that the school was in need of an upgrade.

She said a Labor government would launch a strategic land use study for a new school in St Helens.

"This study would help identify the feasibility of upgrading the current school, or moving to a new site altogether," she said.

"That potentially leaves the current school site open to residential development, which would help ease the housing pressures we know are so prevalent across the East Coast.

"The St Helens Schools infrastructure is already crumbling around the students, and this weeks floods have made matters worse," she said.

"Sewage has spilled from the school, and students and teachers are without access to classrooms."

She said the school "has remained at the bottom of the Liberals' priority list" for years.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said it is working with the school to rectify the effects of the flooding "as a priority".

"All Tasmanian Government schools have the opportunity to lodge Capital Works Submissions on an annual basis," the spokesman said.

"All submissions are assessed against established criteria, including condition, capacity and growth data, and prioritised based on the outcome of that assessment."

The school was heavily flooded on Wednesday after at least 240mm of rainfall hit the town, inundating streets, closing roads and knocking out power and communications.

Mr Martin also said he raised the issue of air conditioning in the school after a complaint from his daughter.

"She's gone up to the three to six area, and it's stifling hot," he said.

He said he contacted the Department, but was again told requests for air conditioning needed to form a part of the capital works submission.

"I said there hasn't been a submission for us to do, and he said, 'well you'll just have to wait until there is."

"We only get so much tome to educate these kids, and we need to do it in the most efficient way possible.

"The kids are the ones that are bearing the brunt of the lack of intent, lack of delivery, lack of everything."