Agenda item

With reference to article 5 of the Policy and Strategy (Education) Committee of 21 January 2009 and article 8 of the minute of Council of 11 February 2009, the Committee had before it a report by the Director of Education, Culture and Sport which outlined the outcome of the stakeholder consultation on which site should be selected for a new school to replace Bucksburn and Newhills Primary School.

The Council had allocated £10.45m of funding for the new Bucksburn/Newhills School under the non-housing capital programme.   Subsequently, further funding of £4.125m to support construction costs had been received in principle from the Scottish Government through the Scottish Futures Trust.  This funding was anticipated to commence in 2011/12.

Following formal statutory consultation the Policy and Strategy (Education) Committee resolved at its meeting on 21 January, 2009 to adopt the motion to close both Bucksburn and Newhills Primary Schools and establish a new school on the preferred site.   This decision was ratified by Council which further instructed a feasibility study to be conducted upon both school sites.

The report advised that stakeholder engagement on the preferred school site ran from 17 May to 23 August, 2010.   The stakeholder engagement document had been made available via the two existing primary schools and dedicated web pages were set up on the Council website.   A stakeholder engagement event was also held on 25 May at Bucksburn Academy at which indicative plans for the development of both sites were on display, including a non-site specific representation of the floor plan of the replacement school.   Officers had been in attendance to answer questions from stakeholders and cards were also provided for attendees to leave their comments and submissions.   Furthermore, a dedicated e-mail address for questions and submissions was established in May and meetings had also been held with the parent council members of Newhills, representatives of Bucksburn and Newhills Community Council, and Bucksburn Parent Council.  

Appended to the report was a summary of the feedback from the stakeholder engagement.   The report advised that overall the majority of submissions had been in favour of the Newhills site for the new school and many had reflected parental concerns about decant arrangements.   Also appended to the report was the summary of the feasibility report of the two sites which indicated that traffic engineers had advised that the existing Bucksburn School site was considered to be poorly located in transportation, access and road safety terms and would attract a recommendation of refusal should a planning application be lodged for a new primary school to serve the Bucksburn area on this site.   Therefore based upon both the stakeholder engagement results and the feasibility report, the report advised that officers were of the view that the preferred site for the replacement school was the current Newhills site. 

The report advised that arrangements would be made for the safe and efficient decant of pupils and staff from the chosen site during demolition of the old building and the construction of the new school.  If approval was given at Committee for the outlined option, detailed decant arrangements would then be finalised and announced.   The report advised that the preference was to bring both school communities together as soon as possible and if feasible to use the existing non-developed site to accommodate the pupils from the school on the site which was to be developed.

The report recommended:-

that the Committee –

(a)       agree that the preferred site for the new school was the current Newhills School campus;  and

(b)       instruct officers to make all necessary arrangements to facilitate the establishment of the new school, including interim decant arrangements and the requisite application for planning permission.

The Convener advised that he would move the recommendations contained in the report.

Councillor Crockett moved, as an amendment:-

            that the Council accept the outcome of the consultation and proceed with the refurbishment of both schools.

As a funding source had not been identified for the amendment, the Convener declared the motion to be incompetent within the terms of Standing Order 12(3).

The Committee resolved:-

to approve the recommendations contained in the report.