Leichhardt child care splurge

BY RYAN QUINN

Leichhardt Council has continued to build an expensive child care centre despite declining birth rates in the LGA.

With rates at their lowest since 2004, Independent Leichhardt Councillor John Stamolis said that the council had done nothing at the time of the area’s baby boom in 2009.

“Leichhardt councillors had not kept track of trends in data nor listened to its staff when it decided to spend a very large $4 million on a child care centre in an out-of–the-way location for most parents, six years after the peak,” he said in a statement.

“Now that the boom is over, council are building one of the most expensive childcare centres in Sydney.”

Labor Leichhardt Councillor Frank Breen said that the Greens-led council between 2008 and 2012 were aware of the boom, but failed to give it priority.

“In 2012, local Labor [who were minority in the council] ran on a platform of increasing childcare places available in the Leichhardt munipality,” he told City Hub.

The 2012 election of Labor Mayor Darcy Byrne initially proposed building three council-funded child care centres, which was then reduced to one.

It was found that demand had been met by the trending downturn in Leichhardt birth rates and privately-operated child centres which had opened in the absence of council-owned ones.

Clr Stamolis said that with most children from the boom now in primary school, funds would be better spent on youth facilities and amenities for children.

“The thing that is a priority item is providing the space that kids are going to need for sports, because they’re now coming into that age where soccer fields, tennis courts and netball courts are going to be needed,” he told City Hub.

“So would you have spent 4 million dollars on a child care centre or would you have spent it on new courts?”

Clr Stamolis said that a possible baby boom could be foreseen as early as 2003 and 2004 but council did not address this, despite complaints from parents.

“The data showed us that we should’ve had this centre functional in 2008, 2009 when parents were screaming. Go back over your stories, you’ll see what I mean. They’re not screaming now,” he told City Hub.

Although birth rates are down, director of the nearby St. Thomas Child Care Centre in Rozelle Anna Frade said that there was still a very high need for child care in the area.

“Our waiting list is quite long, so I think there is demand definitely for child care in the city area”

“I do think it’s needed and I do also feel like it needs to be affordable too. I mean if they’re going to be charging more than a hundred dollars a day, it’s going to be a bit steep.”

Clr Breen said that the introduction of the new centre would help to set better quality and pricing standards for other local centres.

“The idea is that a council facility does have a positive impact on the rest of the providers, and if they’re good operators, they’ll be able to review their situation and make some changes,” he said.