Inner Sydney will have a high-rise public high school within five years after the state government agreed to relocate the city's language school from its prime spot near Central Station and rebuild a much-needed new school for the city.
NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli will on Monday announce that the Cleveland Street Intensive English High School will be moved to make way for a new high school, ending a long campaign from parents.
The $60 million new school will open in 2020, but like the high-rise high school promised for Parramatta last week, it will be dependent on the government's proposed sale of the state's electricity poles and wires.
Mr Piccoli has also pledged to spend $100 million replacing the ageing and overcrowded Arthur Phillip High School and adjacent Parramatta Public School with high-rise buildings if the government is given a mandate to privatise NSW's electricity assets.
The new school for the inner city comes after a consultation strategy, which was launched in May last year, looked at the need for more space for high schools to cope with an anticipated 2500 additional secondary students living in inner Sydney by 2026.
Inner Sydney will start to run out of classrooms for high school students in three years. There are no comprehensive high schools in the CBD and the closest – in Glebe, Balmain and Alexandria Park – are either full or almost full.
Enrolments at the city's primary schools have ballooned in recent years, more than tripling since 2008 at Bourke Street Public School and doubling at Darlinghurst Public School.
Skye Molyneux, from Community for Local Options for Secondary Education which has been lobbying for a new high school, said the government had chosen the most obvious location for a new high school.
"This is really exciting and Cleveland Street was the site we first looked at for a number of reasons," Ms Molyneux said.
"Now I am just hoping the kids in areas like Paddington and Woollahra will also come within the boundaries."
Ms Molyneux said the 2020 opening date was "a little too far away" and her group would keep the pressure on the government to ensure the timetable did not slip.
"But for the kids in Surry Hills, Woolloomooloo, Darlinghurst and parts of Paddington, this will be a great thing," she said.
Mr Piccoli said the redevelopment of the Cleveland Street site would include a mix of refurbished buildings and new multi-storey buildings.
His department would work with the City of Sydney to provide access to recreational space in Prince Alfred Park.
"We have been working with world-leading educators, designers and architects to create the classrooms of the future," Mr Piccoli said.
"The redevelopment of the site will accommodate up to 1500 secondary students."
Late last year, the state government agreed to pay $74 million to buy a City of Sydney-owned site on the corner of Wattle, Jones and Fig streets in Ultimo to house a new school for as many as 1000 primary school students.
It will open at the start of 2018.
