£13m work to keep crumbling schools open starts next year

Published on Friday 23 October 2009 10:13

WORK to keep crumbling city schools up and running while they await modernisation is due to start next year.

The council is planning to spend around 13 million over the next five years on "remedial works" for the five city schools which make up the wave three school rebuilding programme.

This includes carrying out work at Portobello High and James Gillespie's High to keep them going until they are rebuilt within the next few years.

The money will also help the dilapidated Boroughmuir High, St John's Primary and St Crispin's Special School to keep functioning after it emerged there was no hope of rebuilding them in the near future.

The contract for the building work at all five schools has been put out to tender, with an anticipated start date of next Easter or summer.

The work will be done in phases, with 5.6m being spent during next year's first round on roofing works and window and building fabric repairs.

It is expected that, over the next five years, a total of 2.9m will be spent on bringing Boroughmuir up to scratch, while St John's will get 900,000, St Crispin's 600,000 and Portobello 3.5m.

Originally, it was estimated that 5.4m would need to be spent on James Gillespie's to keep it up and running, however the council hopes to be able to reduce this amount significantly now it has been confirmed the school will be rebuilt within the next five years.

Parents of children at the wave three schools which have no date for undergoing modernisation hope the money saved on James Gillespie's remedial work will go towards more repairs and upgrades to their buildings.

David Manson, chairman of the parent council at St John's, said: "We would like to see that money going back into the pot and distributed between the other three schools.

"I would be shocked if this money wasn't put into the other schools and I will be pressing the council to do this.

"The money allocated to St John's for this work has never been enough and I hope the council will be having negotiations with parents and the school to prioritise work.

"The nursery is falling to bits and should have been demolished 50 years ago, so it would not make any sense to wait until the end of the five years to do something about it."

City education leader Marilyne MacLaren said: "This essential work will ensure that these schools get the improvements they need to continue to provide a top quality education.

"Despite a difficult funding situation, we found a way to meet the essential improvement costs in full for these schools.

"We will also carry out improvements at Portobello and James Gillespie's to keep them operating smoothly until the construction of the new schools begins."