Master planning is currently underway for the co-location of Marlborough Girls’ and Boys’ Colleges, together with the relocation and rebuild of Bohally Intermediate School.

Over the past few months, representatives of the three kura, iwi, the Ministry of Education and construction consortium Te Tumu have been working through aspects of the project such as layout of the school sites, cultural design features and staging of the construction process.

It’s exciting to see years of preparation and perseverance come to fruition as members of the planning team work through options for how the new schools could be sited.

It is fantastic that the detailed master planning required to effectively sequence an education transformation project as complex as Te Tātoru o Wairau is on track. It is reassuring that the timeline has not been further impacted on by Covid-related delays.

Initial layout options have shown that co-location of the two colleges on the McLauchlan St site is absolutely possible, and the team is working to refine campus layout options that we’ll then be able to share with you.

One of the first priorities for master planning has been the preferred future location for the new intermediate school on the existing boys’ college campus, incorporating College Park.

The project group has explored a range of options across the MBC campus and has agreed on College Park being the preferred location for the new intermediate to be built.

While there will be a short-term impact for our sport programmes from losing some access to College Park, this disruption is manageable and will be far less than if the construction of Bohally was to take place at our main site.

Over the next six months the project’s architects will be working with both colleges, iwi and the Ministry of Education to develop and refine potential and preferred layouts for the co-located campus, together with a timeframe for construction. We look forward to sharing these with you later this year.

If you would like to explore further information about the project, then please head to https://www.tetatoruowairau.nz/ where you can also subscribe to receive regular updates as the project progresses.