THE Country Fire Authority’s Warrnambool station could be up for sale early in the new year.
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The authority expects its new $8 million facility on Mortlake Road to be operational by January.
CFA assistant chief officer Bob Barry said government departments would have first preference to take on the Raglan Parade station site.
”We will go through a sale process and if there are other government agencies interested in (buying the site), they do get preference,” he said.
“However, that's not always the case and there may not be any other agencies interested – so it could go to a general sale.
“We will continue to maintain our current incident control and service delivery centre (on the corner of Raglan Parade and Walsh Road) with an ongoing lease.”
Mr Barry said the Warrnambool Primary School had expressed interest in purchasing the land during the CFA’s planning phase for its new location.
“There was no undertaking given at that time because we still didn't know what and where the new station would be,” he said.
Warrnambool Primary School principal Peter Auchettl wrote to the CFA in 2013, with an interest in using the building for the Warrnambool Network of Government Schools.
He said there was an idea for 19 schools to form an alliance with Deakin University for teacher training, based on a model used by The Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership.
The Melbourne-based facility offers leadership development and learning opportunities for education professionals.
“At the moment our interest in that building isn’t as high as it was 18 months ago,” Mr Auchettl said.
“It would be advantageous for the education sector, but like all things in life there needs to be financial resources to procure it.
”If they’re saying it will be offered to government agencies for a fee, we would struggle with that.
“My understanding is it would need to go to Melbourne through the Department of Education.
“As a school we don’t have access to those sort of funds, but as a department we do.”