Parents gear up for fight to save schools facing the axe

Published on Wednesday 10 June 2009 10:08

CAMPAIGNERS are gearing up to take on the council over its plans to close a further four city primary schools.

Opposition is already mounting against the proposals, which could see the closure of Drumbrae, Royston, Fort and Burdiehouse primaries next summer.

Parents and children had the news broken to them yesterday that their schools have been earmarked for closure, but they have already warned they are not going to take it lying down.

The move to close the schools follows the council's controversial plan in August 2007 to shut 13 primaries, three secondaries and six nurseries, which was aborted following mass protests from parents and communities.

Eric Jackson, parent council chair of Drumbrae Primary, which was on the original 2007 hit list, said the fight to save the school will start once again.

He said: "The school has fought long and hard since the original closures were announced. Although we have got a low occupancy rate, that's due to the fact we were on the original list because it has made parents decide not to put their children into the school.

"This is not down to anything that the school has done wrong.

"We will fight it again. We will fight it as far as we can take it."

"Because we were on the original list it was obviously always at the back of our minds,

but it's still a great shock and a great disappointment to be told this."

At Fort Primary in Leith, even though it was decided earlier this year that the nearby Fort House estate was to be bulldozed, parents say they still want to send their children to the school and will fight all the way.

Mother-of-three Nichole Edwards, 32, has two children at the primary and believes the council won't win the battle to close the school.

She said: "I don't believe it's going to happen because there's no reason to shut a good, clean, safe school.

"Because the classes are small, the kids get more help and more one-to-one time with the teacher.

"I just don't understand where the council is coming from trying to close a perfectly good school."

The council is proposing that pupils from Burdiehouse would be given places at Gracemount or Gilmerton if it were to close.

Pupils from Fort would go to Trinity, while pupils from Royston in Granton would go to either Granton or Forthview. Children from Drumbrae would go to Clermiston or East Craigs.

Closing the schools would save the council more than 1 million a year in costs and bring in a further 2.4m in land sales.

Council bosses say there are 8,600 empty places in city primaries and closing these four would remove 1,270 excess places.

The occupancy rates at the under-threat schools range from just 33 per cent to 41 per cent.

The council also plans to close a secondary school, to be named later, by 2011 to save a further 1m.

Alison Johnstone, the Greens' council education spokeswoman, said the primary closures were just the "tip of the iceberg". She said: "With this 'drip drip' approach to school closures I remain unconvinced that the council is not intent on closing schools on a wider scale and it is important that those schools affected make their feelings known.

"Many other parents will be left wondering which school is next on the list."