Council decides against site purchase for tertiary campus

Manukau City Council today (Thursday) decided not to go ahead with the purchase of a site near Manukau’s CBD, intended for a tertiary campus for Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

The council went out to consultation late last year, and heard submissions on the proposal in January, for a joint venture company which would buy a site to enable AUT to establish a Manukau campus.

During this time, the council has been working closely with AUT to explore in depth a specific site appropriate for a campus near the Manukau CBD. However, it was decided that while a collaborative approach for establishing another campus in Manukau is worthwhile, in this instance the requirements of council and AUT could not be met.

The council decided to not go ahead with the current proposal to establish a council-controlled organisation regarding a tertiary campus in the Manukau area. Instead the council will discuss options at a workshop next month.

Manukau Mayor Len Brown says that the council still firmly supports the increase in tertiary educational opportunities for Manukau’s youth.

“We must close the skills gap. Education is extremely important for Manukau’s future,” Mr Brown says.

“During the consultation process for this proposal, the community told us that they want to see a wide range of tertiary educational opportunities provided for their children in Manukau.

“I would like to thank them for their submissions. They gave us an excellent insight into how they view this issue, and they also reaffirmed our belief that education is one of the keys to Manukau’s future as a successful and progressive city.

“AUT and the Manukau Institute of Technology are both highly respected tertiary institutions; we are committed to working with them and we know that they have similar objectives to ours.

“Throughout our discussions with AUT, it was clear that AUT is committed to working with us and with MIT to ensure that the joint AUT/MIT campus that has been proposed for the Manukau city centre will go ahead.

“That this particular proposal could not, at the end, be concluded successfully only indicates that, as a council, we are determined to ensure a robust result is reached that satisfies the requirements of everyone involved.”