Seymour pushes for new co-ed high school on Epsom campus
David Seymour wants the Government to buy the University of Auckland's Epsom campus for a new co-educational high school.
He set out the proposal on 29 September. The principals and boards of Auckland Grammar School and Epsom Girls' Grammar School back the plan, after approaching Seymour in July to co-sponsor the school — to jointly support it — on the campus land. RNZ
The site is valued at $150 million. NZ Herald It has sat empty for years. The university wants to sell it.
The campus opened in 1926 as the Auckland College of Education. Its last teaching use ended when the Faculty of Education and Social Work moved to the City Campus in 2024. University of Auckland
Seymour has written to the Minister of Education asking for an assurance the land will not be sold in the immediate future. He has also asked the minister to look at selling other land owned by the Ministry of Education to pay for the purchase.
One block he has named is a large piece of land beside Alexandra Park, bought by the ministry in the 1990s. According to Seymour, it has not been used.
The proposed school would be unzoned, meaning entry would not be decided by home address. The aim is to ease pressure on school rolls without changing current zones. The enrolment boundaries for Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls' Grammar would stay the same, with extra places added in the same area.
Seymour said he would tell the next government the new school is a critical project for his community. He has made the commitment as Epsom MP as well as ACT leader, linking his local mandate in Epsom to the property decision.
The broader context here is that secondary space in inner Auckland and decisions about school land are hard to line up. Once land is sold, it is rarely bought back. Ministers are usually careful about stepping into university sales, and about paying for one purchase by selling other land, because those choices affect budgets and set a pattern for the rest of the school network.
Looking at what this could mean after the election, the framing matters. An electorate MP asking the current minister to hold off a sale, while publicly locking in a future ask of the next government, creates a marker. It gives officials a reason to pause, gives the boards a public commitment to point to, and gives Seymour a defined local project to bring to any government formation discussion. Whether that leads to purchase funding will depend on property valuations, roll projections and competing capital bids, none of which are settled by a campaign launch.
