Sheryl Lowe, Naracoorte Community News
The small regional community of Tantanoola in the South East of South Australia has big plans to move their almost one-million-dollar school gymnasium a few hundred metres across a couple of country roads to the town’s sporting complex.
We have the skills in our community to do this, Tantanoola local Mr. Peter Altschwager told The News, we just need permission.
Tantanoola is situated between Mt Gambier and Millicent, about 18k from Millicent in the Wattle Range Council LGA and currently has a population of about 213. Local students were educated at the once vibrant school for 139 years but with recent declining numbers, the Education Minister John Gardner decided to close the school in 2020.
He said at the time, it was a difficult decision to make but with teacher numbers outnumbering students, it was inevitable.
The gymnasium was built in 2011 with Federal Government funding from the former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s government’s allocation of funding to Australian schools across the country, for the purpose of building gymnasiums.
Due the impending sale of the school, possibly to a private buyer, the gymnasium will be lost to the community, so members of the strong sporting community came up with the idea they could move the $925,000 facility across the road to their sporting complex.
Mr. Altschwager told The News, the gymnasium was built with Federal Government money. It wasn’t funded from the Education Department budget, not from South Australia tax payer’s money, so to retain it for community use is the right thing to do. To be sold with the school is not the best use of the funding or the building. The Education Department does own it now, but didn’t fund it, he told us.
The community has done a lot of work at the town’s sporting complex over many years, with upgrades funded largely by Kimberley Clarke Australia, Corporate gifts, Infigin Energy, grants and donations. To add the gymnasium to this complex would be a great benefit to our community, he said.
“We used to have a committee of four, who managed most of the upgrades and at the time we operated under a Council section 41 committee to be covered for public liability insurance. We are no longer a section 41 committee, meaning we are no longer a sub-committee of Council.”
Mr. Altschwager said the community has not formally approached Wattle Range Council for any assistance but said he did bring it to the elected members attention when he attended the informal part of the budget meeting in 2021.
“Do you want Council to move it?” we asked Mr. Altschwager.
“No, we have enough skills in the community to do it, we just need permission to move it.”
“We’ll cover the cost of moving it too.”
“Give a community organization $1-00, they’ll get $3-00 value out of it. Give a Council $1-00, they’ll get 30 cents value out of it.”
Member for MacKillop Nick McBride MP said on 5THE FM Radio this week, he is working with members of the Tantanoola community and will seek an appointment with the Minister for Education Mr. John Gardner to discuss retaining the gymnasium for community use with its relocation to the sporting complex.
At the time of the school’s closure, predictions claimed people were no longer interested in moving to the regions. Real estate data in 2020/2021 shows people are now keen to move from the cities to regional towns. Several homes listed for sale in Tantanoola last year sold to interstate buyers. The Limestone Coast has shown one of the highest regional growth rates in the real estate industry, with the pandemic thought to be an influence.
Tantanoola is known as the home of the folklore tale of the Tantanoola Tiger, a marauding animal that stalked the region in the 1890’s. The suspect was shot and killed by Mr. Thomas Donovan in 1895 and sits, in its preserved state, at the Tantanoola Tiger Hotel in the centre of town.
This article appeared in Naracoorte Community News.
