An exciting partnership between Campaspe Shire Council and Sandhurst Catholic Early Childhood Education and Care (SCECEC) is set to see a new early childhood community hub developed in Echuca's west.
Mayor, Cr Chrissy Weller said the hub will be located on vacant land between two existing schools, St Mary's Primary School on Bridlington Avenue and Echuca Twin Rivers School on Wilkinson Drive.
Campaspe Shire will provide the land, with SCECEC to build and operate the community hub which aims to provide a kindergarten, children's services centre, maternal and child health rooms and support visiting allied health services, creating an education precinct in Echuca's west.
"The demand for three and four-year-old kindergarten in Echuca is currently not met by existing centres, and is only set to increase with the rapid growth in the west," Cr Weller said.
"In addition child care services are under pressure."
"This development will help to meet this demand as well as providing increased choice to families."
"The ability to relocate Council's Echuca based maternal and child health service to the new facility will provide many benefits to the community, collocating children's services to provide a "one stop shop".
Executive Director of SCECEC, Paul Desmond said they were proud to be partnering with Campaspe Shire on delivering what will be an exceptional community centre for families of Echuca and district.
"We have recently been successful in obtaining a State Government grant through the Building Blocks Capacity Building Grant stream that supports creating additional kindergarten places for three and four-year-old children by building new, or expanding existing infrastructure," Mr Desmond said.
"The hub will meet the immediate and long term shortfall in kindergarten supply."
"We already operate two kindergartens in our region, and Catholic Education Sandhurst Ltd who we are affiliated with, operates 56 primary and secondary schools in northern Victoria."
Campaspe Shire will start the statutory process for transferring the land shortly.
