Meander Valley Council has blocked a community meeting of Meander residents interested in learning about a program being run at the town’s former primary school.

At a working bee held on June 19 at the former Meander Primary School, resident Kerin Booth said the program’s teacher had asked whether locals were interested in learning about the program being run there by Deloraine High School and the Beacon Foundation.

‘We settled on a date and put a poster about it on FaceBook and on the Meander shop noticeboard. Within three hours they had both been removed,’ Ms Booth said.

The meeting poster stated, ‘A community meeting will be held at 4pm Wednesday 30th June at the Meander School site, courtesy of Callan Smith of Meander Valley Outdoor Education Experience (MVOEE) pilot program, which has interim use of the Meander School until the end of the year. Cal invites members of the community to come along and hear about this program. The Deloraine High School principal and the chaplain are also hoping to attend. All welcome! Please bring a chair!’

‘I thought it was a sensible idea,’ said Ms Booth, who is the secretary of the Meander Area Residents and Ratepayers Association.

The cancellation notice said that Meander Valley Council asked that all such events relating to the Meander School site be organised through council. 

Asked by the Gazette about the directive, Cllr Johnston, who lives at Meander, said, ‘The council has a letter going out to the Meander community explaining its position. A meeting prior to the council process would not answer the questions that would be asked. This is a good news story for the Meander community and the old school site, please don’t turn it into a bad one.’

Ms Booth said some MARRA members were puzzled as to why the council believes it has control over the Meander community getting together for a meeting. ‘It’s a very controlling approach.’

MARRA president Bodhi McSweeney played down the significance of Cllr Johnston blocking the meeting.

‘The council asked that if a meeting is held it needs to go through them,’ she said. ‘It’s not a big deal.’

Meander Valley Council stated in a May media release that it will ‘ask the Meander community to help decide the future of the former Meander Primary School site’. There is no sign of consultation yet. 

Deloraine High will use the site until the end of this year to run a Beacon Foundation program, which Beacon chief operating officer Kathryn McCann emphasised was a ‘community program’.

Cllr Johnston recently said that the council had asked the state government for a change in the conditions for use of the school but was rejected.

A government spokesperson said, ‘The Crown Lands Act 1976 order relating to the former Meander School property states the site must be used for community purposes which may include public recreation and community events.

‘The order does not limit the community purpose to a specific community. Under the current order the site must not be used for any commercial purposes.’