SA Liberals to spend $60 million for food and hospitality school

South Australian opposition leader Steven Marshall to spend $60 million moving the International College of Hotel Management and the Le Cordon Bleu school from Regency Park TAFE, to a new facility the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site.

The initiative would transform the Royal Adelaide Hospital site which was closed last year after the opening of a new $2.3 billion facility.

Mr Marshall said creating a food education precinct would attract local and international students.

"This facility, built in the 1970s, is now tired. It is not competing with the very best international colleges that exist right around the world," Mr Marshall told reporters.

"The Liberal Party believes there's a great opportunity and that is to build a new facility on the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site."

At the moment, Adelaide's Le Cordon Bleu campus and other TAFE hospitality programs are only offered in the northern suburbs.

The problem now, he said, was that only 3.7 per cent of international students in hospitality courses were studying in Adelaide.

A new centralised location, Mr Marshall said, would make the state much more attractive and draw international students.

"We want this new site to be a beacon for international students and a great employer for South Australians," Mr Marshall said.

"It will create dollars coming in from overseas that we so desperately need for our economy.”

The plan comes on top of the $2.75 million business start-up precinct on the site that the Liberals also promised.

Infrastructure Minister Stephen Mullighan said the plan just an electioneering line.

"They've had seven different positions on this,” Mr Mullighan told reporters.

"The Liberal Party is in blind panic to come up with a plan for the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site."

The Labor Party has pledged to turn part of the site into a start-up hub with a focus on artificial intelligence, robotics and renewable energy.

Leon Getler 27th February 2018