Fury road: Demolition looms in school’s gate stoush with Yarra Council

An inner-north council is set to send a demolition squad into a private school next month to end a long-standing row over a set of gates.

Yarra Council has been in dispute with Alphington Grammar School since 2019 over what it says is the illegal construction of a set of gates across a disused public road the school has occupied for 70 years.

A section of Old Heidelberg Road, leading to Darebin Creek and adjoining the popular Darebin Creek Trail, has long been part of the school grounds. But when the school fenced off the end of the road in 2019, citing student safety, Yarra Council and many locals were not happy.

The council forced the school in 2022 to remove a pedestrian gate which formed part of the barrier, allowing walkers and cyclists access to the school grounds.

But the council intends to next month spend about $400,000 forcibly removing the entire brick and wrought iron structure, which it says was illegally constructed. The move would allow public vehicular access to the land – something the school says will endanger its students.

Access to the trail has been a controversial and emotive issue for Alphington locals since the $18 million walking and cycling route was completed in 2018, with no official access point in the suburb, despite the majority of the trail being located in Alphington itself.

The Age found on Sunday that the path can be accessed on foot through the school grounds, but only by following a narrow unmarked track, along the creek bank and under a bridge, a route the school describes as unacceptably dangerous.

More than 270 submissions to a council consultation process about opening the road supported the removal of the gates, prompting the council to say the Alphington public was on its side.

The school’s landlord, The Greek Community, which supports the school’s position, said last week an offer of $1.4 million had been made to buy the section of Old Heidelberg Road that is in the school grounds. The offer was rejected by Yarra Council.

The council is adamant in its position that the school acted illegally in fencing off the end of Old Heidelberg Road, and says it is sending in a demolition squad early next month to settle the six-year dispute.

The council says installing a raised pedestrian crossing on the site of the gates will keep students and staff safe.

VicRoads is acquiring land from Latrobe Golf Club for a new $9 million link from Farm Road, about 500 metres south of the school for pedestrians and bike riders, with construction scheduled to begin next year.

School principal Vivianne Nikou told The Age that allowing vehicles to drive effectively onto the school grounds put her students and staff at an unacceptable risk. “Our sole concern is the safety and wellbeing of our students and staff,” she said.

Nikou said the locals who believed they could have unimpeded access to the trail through the school grounds were mistaken and pointed to the 4000 signatories the school had collected on a petition to try to lobby the council to relent. “Over 4000 people said that this is a road to nowhere,” she said.

“It’s redundant, and it terminates totally within the school property. There is nowhere for cars to go. There is no ability to turn around, and pedestrians. What pedestrians want is to get to the bike path. Farm Road is being built for them.”

A last-ditch attempt to persuade the council to spare the gates was made last week with Nikou, students and Greek Community vice president Michael Karamitos pleading at a Yarra Council meeting.

But Yarra Mayor Steven Jolly said on Sunday that the council was determined to regain control of the road, arguing the overwhelming weight of local public opinion agreed.

Jolly said the council wanted to improve the approach to the creek and Old Heidelberg Road but only if it had access to the land.

“The overwhelming majority of the local people who live in Alphington support the council. The fact is that it’s a public walkway that leads to the Darebin Creek. The state government has told us to approve 44,000 new homes in Yarra, the population is set to double. So we need to learn to share. We can’t just have people whacking up gates because it’s in their interest.”

One Alphington resident, who asked to speak anonymously because of the highly emotive nature of the debate, said that for him and many of his neighbours, the issue was simple. “It’s a public road, they’ve built the gate and fence illegally,” he said. “It’s coming down.”

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