As Victoria's population grows, so too does the need for more green space in its cities and towns. A state advisory body says the answer could be just around the corner, and it involves local schools.
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00:00Ben's making a sandcastle.
00:04It's not what a parent expects to hear.
00:06First day of school holidays, the first thing they said to me on the Saturday was, can we
00:09go up to school and play?
00:10A family of seven needs a lot of space to run around, so Amanda's family comes here
00:15to the local primary school.
00:17Its gates are open seven days a week, and there's even a farmer's market here on Sundays.
00:23Often we'll turn up to do something and there'll be half a dozen people here already.
00:28According to research by Infrastructure Victoria, two-thirds of public schools in Melbourne
00:32are open to the community outside of school hours, meaning families have space to play
00:38close to home.
00:39But 1.7 million people are out of luck.
00:42They live more than a 10-minute walk from green space, and most of them are in the city's
00:47outer suburbs.
00:48Especially as our city and our population grows, there's a really big opportunity to
00:53make better use of our school grounds.
00:55Infrastructure Victoria is calling on the state government to support more schools to
00:58open up.
01:00According to its research, if all of the city's public schools kept their gates open, an additional
01:05450,000 people would have access to green space in their local area.
01:11Some principals say they're worried opening their school to the public could mean they
01:14have to deal with more graffiti and damage.
01:16But Dr. Speer says they shouldn't have to worry about that.
01:20That's why we've recommended that schools that open up for community use get funding
01:26to help them with any additional maintenance or administrative burden to do that.
01:30Anything to sweeten the deal.