John Nicholson/Stuff
Hutt Valley High School’s chairman of the board of trustees, Hamish Bowen, says redevelopment plans need to go beyond demolishing the mouldy C Block.
With Hutt Valley High School’s mould-riddled C Block slated for demolition, the school’s board chairman says a much wider redevelopment is needed to avoid history being repeated. In March, several classrooms in the school s C Block were evacuated and sealed off after unsafe levels of black mould were detected. Following more testing, thirteen learning spaces and a dance studio were closed which has forced senior students to work from home when term two started this week.
Warwick Smith/Stuff
Woodville School’s junior block, built in 1879, is New Zealand’s oldest classroom still in use, but significant earthquake strengthening and renovation costs may soon see it mothballed.
Generations of school children have whispered of the ghostly nun that rings the Woodville School junior block bell, but now the bell may be tolling for New Zealand’s oldest classrooms. The buildings been part of Woodville School since 1879, two years after the school opened with a roll of 30 children, and it is the only classroom of that era still in use today. But the substantial costs to ensure the venerable classroom is fit-for-purpose, and necessary earthquake strengthening work, have called its future into question.
STACY SQUIRES/STUFF
Phillipstown Community Centre Charitable Trust manager Dr Viviana Zanetti is concerned about what will happen to the community facility when the current lease expires in December.
The future of a community hub on the site of an earthquake-damaged Christchurch school remains uncertain as its lease comes up for renewal. Ten organisations and 45 casual groups use the Phillipstown Community Hub on Nursery Rd, which opened six years ago. About 850 people attended classes, social activities, health and fitness programmes and support meetings there each week.
Phillipstown Community Centre Charitable Trust leases the site and manages the various rooms and outdoor spaces. It pays costs but is not required to pay rent to the Ministry of Education.
John Nicholson/Stuff
A roofing report from 2019 warned of the potential for fungus to become a health hazard in areas of Hutt Valley High School that were recently closed because of mould.
A potential mould problem at Hutt Valley High School was raised years before 13 classrooms were forced to close, leaving students to learn from home, for that very reason, a report shows. In 2019, the school commissioned building consultants CoveKinloch to look at the state of roofs on some buildings. The report, seen by
Stuff, identified moisture issues as a result of rotten, peeling and holey roofs at the school could become a health hazard, because of the potential for fungus growth.