Southbank unites: we want a school at Victoria Barracks

Off the back of last month’s coverage looking into what could come next for the Victoria Barracks site, one key idea has emerged that Southbankers are now uniting behind: a school. 

For years, Southbank residents have been told to accept the trade-off.

Yes, the suburb is growing fast. Yes, more apartments are coming. Yes, density is the future. But the schools, parks, meeting spaces and everyday infrastructure that make a real community possible? Those can wait.

They should not wait any longer.

The proposed sale of Victoria Barracks has opened a once-in-a-generation opportunity to correct one of Southbank’s biggest planning failures: the absence of a walkable, non-selective public secondary school, or even a Prep to Year 12 school, for the suburb’s growing family population.

In a compelling letter to Southbank News, resident and parent Vicky da Gama made the case clearly.

“As a Southbank parent, I look around our neighbourhood and see cranes, apartments and density everywhere. What I don’t see is the one thing families need most: a walkable, non-selective public secondary school,” she wrote. Her final line is the one that should stick with governments: 

That is the issue in a nutshell.

Southbank’s population has doubled in a decade to more than 22,000 residents. It is now one of the densest parts of Australia. Families are here, and more will come. Yet when children reach secondary school age, there is still no local public option embedded in the daily walking life of the suburb.

On one side of Southbank, students are zoned to Port Melbourne Secondary College in Fishermans Bend. On the other, they are zoned to Prahran High School. Both are excellent new schools, but both are already serving large and fast-growing catchments. And neither is in Southbank.

The state government deserves credit for delivering new primary schools in and around the inner city, including South Melbourne Primary School on Ferrars St, South Melbourne Park Primary on Albert Rd, and the newly opened Narrarrang Primary School in Fishermans Bend. But no local secondary education remains as the glaring gap.

That is why the idea now gathering support around Victoria Barracks is so important.

The site already has what so many other inner-city locations lack: land, open space, secure access, parking, substantial buildings that could be adapted, and room for sport and recreation. As Ms da Gama points out, it includes green space suitable for sports fields and playgrounds, tennis courts, larger structures that could become classrooms, a gym or auditorium, on-site cafeteria facilities, safe entry points, staff parking and even a childcare centre next door.

Its location is unmatched. It sits within walking distance of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Tan Track, near the NGV and Arts Precinct, with multiple tram routes and a genuinely walkable catchment.

This is not an argument for demolition. It is the opposite. It is a case for adaptive reuse of one of Melbourne’s most significant public sites in a way that serves the modern community while preserving its past.

Ms da Gama has suggested a Prep to Year 12 school and community hub. That is a serious and worthy idea. At the very least, however, there is broad local agreement that a secondary school is critical.

Southbank Residents’ Association president Tony Penna put it bluntly.

“Whereas something like a school is a tangible outcome. It’s a tangible result, which will have certainly lasting implications to the community,” he said.

That tangibility matters. Southbank has had no shortage of glossy visions and strategic plans. What it has lacked are practical facilities that make life easier for families and help anchor a neighbourhood.

Southbank3006 president David Hamilton said the opportunity was there for government to finally step up.

“The secondary school is definitely needed, and the catchment area is phenomenal,” he said.

More importantly, he argued that the City of Melbourne was best placed to lead the push because it can frame the issue not as a niche request from local groups, but as a major civic need backed by a level of government.

To its credit, the City of Melbourne has already begun laying the groundwork. Lord Mayor Nick Reece’s February 17 motion on Defence Estate Audit sites set the scene for a more imaginative public future at Victoria Barracks. The council’s draft Community Infrastructure Plan identifies major gaps in family and youth services, recreation spaces and open space.

A school would do more than educate local children. It would help unlock broader community benefits. A well-designed campus could include halls, courts, running tracks, meeting rooms and green spaces that serve the wider public after hours and on weekends.

There may still be room for carefully considered affordable housing on parts of the site, particularly near Coventry St. But the site’s core value should not be judged purely in dollars per square metre.

The Commonwealth and state government now face a choice. They can see Victoria Barracks as just another asset to be monetised. Or they can recognise it as the place to finally give Southbank the school and community infrastructure it has been denied for too long.

Southbank has built the homes. It has absorbed the towers. It has carried the density.

Now it deserves the community.

Albert Park MP Nina Taylor didn’t statewhether she was willing to advocate for a school in Southbank at this stage, but noted that the Department of Education regularly reviewed demographic data to determine the need for and location of new schools.

“I’m proud to be part of a Labor Government which has delivered a record 121 new public schools including Port Melbourne Secondary College, a world-class school which opened its doors to local students in 2022,” Ms Taylor said.

Rachel Westaway, the MP for Prahran – the electorate where Victoria Barracks is located – told Southbank News that with Prahran High already at capacity, she was supportive of the idea for a school and open space at Victoria Barracks.

“Whoever’s in power has to have a conversation about whether it necessarily needs to go to developers. It doesn’t. It can absolutely be looked at as a high school site and how beautiful to keep that within the public domain,” she said.

“From early learning or daycare right through to primary school and then high school, we’ve got to think about where we can have space and where we can facilitate learning opportunities for kids.”

“I think it should be going out to the community for discussion, but I absolutely think it’s a responsibility of the state government to have a conversation with the feds and work out whether it’s an option for us. I would love to see something like that happen.” •