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By Chris Hook
A proposal for a brothel opposite two residential Catholic colleges has been given the go-ahead by South Sydney Council.
The 24-hour brothel is to be established
on Parramatta Road, Camperdown, on the site of the Student Prince Hotel. Sydney University’s St John’s College and Sancta Sophia College are located in Missenden Road, a stone’s throw from the brothel site.
Approval was granted despite formal objections from the two colleges and Sydney University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gavin Brown.
“We are concerned that the security of our environment is being put at
risk,” said Sancta Sophia principal, Mrs Barbara Walsh. She said many of the college’s 160 students worked part-time in the city at night and used Parramatta Road buses to get home – a bus stop is located opposite
the brothel.
Mrs Walsh said she was concerned brothel clients would harass students. St John’s rector, Fr John Hill, is also concerned about the security of female students. “Down the ages brothels have
always been associated with an unsafe environment,” Fr Hill said.
Mrs Walsh said the colleges objected to the brothel not on moral grounds, but on the basis of the council’s own planning regulations and sex
industry policy.
According to its own policy, South Sydney Council aims “to prevent the location of any new commercial brothels on land that is zoned residential” and “to avoid any detrimental change to the
social character, identity or perceived image of neighbourhoods within South Sydney”. The Camperdown area is a mixed residential area, which made the brothel application a special case, said Mrs Walsh and Fr Hill.
An appeal is being considered but would be expensive, Fr Hill said. “At the moment it seems that they are going to win … but we were determined that they weren’t going to get away with it by default.”
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