By Brendan Rees
Casey’s road and fire safety program for schools has closed as part of coronavirus restrictions – with a new outreach program to be devised for next year.
Casey Council said its decision to permanently close Casey Safety Village in Cranbourne East was not made lightly.
“As a direct result of the lockdown measures currently in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the restriction around schools resuming face-to-face classes, resulting in external school excursions also being restricted, council has made the decision to permanently close the Casey Safety Village, effective immediately,” council said in a statement.
As a result, Casey Council CEO Glenn Patterson said resources would be redirected to developing a new outreach program during 2020 for the start of term one, 2021.
“Council remains committed to improving road safety for children,” he said. “We will be in contact with schools within the municipality to inform them of the new opportunities that will be available for their students.”
It comes as council announced its decision to transition the children’s road safety program at the Casey Safety Village into an outreach program going directly into schools from 2021.
The plan was to continue the operations of the Casey Safety Village throughout 2020, and then undertake its closure at the end of the 2020 school year.
All remaining bookings for 2020 have been cancelled and schools, kindergartens and families affected have been contacted.
Mr Patterson said the health, safety and wellbeing of staff and of the community were council’s number one priority.
“It was always our intention to continue running the program and honour the existing bookings that had already been made, but unfortunately like many services and events, Covid-19 has changed those plans,” he said.
The decision to close the Casey Safety Village was resolved at a December council meeting last year following a service review of the program.
