Public Consultation To Commence On Education Provision In Brae, Lochaber

People in the Brae area of Lochaber will be invited to have their say in a statutory public consultation on the future of local education provision.

Members of the Highland Council’s Education, Culture and Sport Committee today (Thursday 10th November, 2005) agreed to the education service carrying out a statutory public consultation to consider the future of Spean Bridge and Roy Bridge Primary Schools.

Spean Bridge and Roy Bridge Primary Schools are approximately 3 miles apart with rolls of 65 and 30 pupils respectively.

Spean Bridge Primary School is a 21st century school, constructed as one of the first phase of PPP schools in Highland and opened in August 2002. Roy Bridge Primary School, over 100 years old, has significant problems for a building of its age and one classroom, dining room and kitchen are housed in huts with temporary toilet provision.

Members were informed that a series of informal public meetings held in November 2004 in the communities of Spean Bridge and Roy Bridge highlighted that opinions expressed at the meeting in Spean Bridge were generally neutral, whilst those expressed at the Roy Bridge meeting were overwhelmingly against a merger.

The statutory consultation will include consideration of 3 options including the possibility of a new 21st Century school being constructed in Roy Bridge by the community and leased back to the Highland Council.

Another option for consideration will be to amalgamate Roy Bridge and Spean bridge Primary Schools with the closure of Roy Bridge schools and pupils re-located to an extended Spean Bridge Primary. The third option will be to consider the status quo, with Roy Bridge Primary remaining open, however investment in the fabric of the building would be limited to essential health and safety works only for this option.

Bruce Robertson, Highland Council’s Director of Education, Culture and Sport said: "What we have here is two schools, one in very good order and the other in a critical condition regarding the fabric of its building. Our committed capital funding programme approved by members for the next five years does not have allocations to improve the accommodation inadequacies of Roy Bridge.

"We also have a very interesting proposal to consider that has been submitted from the community of Roy Bridge and their school board, in that they are seeking to build a new school as a community initiative and lease it back to the Council. We will consider this option along with the others as part of the statutory public consultation."

Highland Council Vice Convener Dr Michael Foxley, and Chairman of the Lochaber Area Education, Culture and Sport Committee said: "The Roy Bridge community proposal is an imaginative idea and we have to give it a most thorough and critical examination. We should rigorously investigate their community development option and we should give them all the encouragement and help that they need."

The outcomes of the public consultation which it is estimated will take three months will be presented back to the Council’s Education, Culture and Sport Committee for members’ deliberation.