Public meeting

Ask your Questions, Have your Say !

We're holding a public meeting for parents from Buckstone, South Morningside and Bruntsfield primary schools next Thursday 6th November 2008 at South Morningside Primary School at 7.00pm.  The purpose of the meeting is to give parents as much information as possible regarding the options for Boroughmuir.

Malcolm Fraser will present plans for a possible major refurbishment at the Viewforth site and we have asked the Council to present the plans for the proposed new school at Fairmilehead.  Councillor Aitken, one of our local councillors, will chair the meeting.

Last week you should have received, via pupil post, a copy of the Boroughmuir Options for Replacement questionnaire, and supporting information sent out by Edinburgh Council. This is a vital issue that will impact your children’s education, particularly if they are currently at one of the feeder primary schools, Buckstone, Bruntsfield or South Morningside. Parents are asked to choose between two options : a major refurbishment on the school’s current site at Viewforth, or a new build at Fairmilehead, but with no guaranteed site.

The matter is now critical as, whichever option is chosen, Boroughmuir needs a building fit for purpose in the 21st century, so your views are very important ! Please do respond to the questionnaire.

Update October '08
A lot has happened over the last few months.  The Council have undertaken their feasibility study and the plans drawn up by Malcolm Fraser, parent and leading architect have been incorporated in the plans. The Parent Council held a public meeting in March to present these plans to the Boroughmuir Parent Body. There was comprehensive support for this vision for a substantial make over for the current buildings and site.  Malcolm's plans can be seen here

Comments

[Malcolm Fraser]

The recent falls in the housing market have made it more important for us to understand the risk that the Fairmilehead site carries. Scottish Water were, we understand, going to pay for their proposed headquarters building with the proceeds of the sale of the site. However with the site now worth much less than 6 months ago, we can expect that this option would be delayed, at the very least until the recovery in the market.

[Miranda Harvey]

The meeting at South Morningside PS is scheduled to start at 7pm. We really need a good turnout by parents of pupils at feeder primaries. BHS parents have already had the opportunity to hear about the "Vision for Boroughmuir" proposals. Back in March we had about 150 at a public meeting at BHS, and the overwhelming majority of parents said they preferred that option. Since then the Council seem to have developed their ideas for what the Fairmilehead might look like (judging by their map in the survey). We hope that there may be someone from the Council at the meeting to present this option.

Whilst there will be information available, the main point of having a meeting is to hear what parents think. Please come along if you can, whether you have made your mind up or not about which option you prefer.

Miranda Harvey
Chair BHS PTA/Action for Boroughmuir member

[Concerned Parent]

It is simply unacceptable! For the council to spend so much on trams without consulting the citizens of edinburgh and then claim there is not sufficient funding for a new boroughmuir is extremely poor.

Crumbling schools should be priority and the council has acted poorly at every stage of this process. At no point have parents been properly consulted and as a parent, I expected better.

Keep up the good work AFB!

[Ian]

The Action for Boroughmuir Questionnaire was extremely loaded in favour of the refurbishment option I was kind of hoping that this would be the forum for a balanced view of both options. I attended the Sth. Morningside meeting last night and found the CEC rep. to come out with basic facts or a much as she could given that the project is in it's infancy whilst the refurbishment options appeared to be based on opinion rather than fact.

WRT to the Bourughmuir Questionaire :-

The “Key Facts” section are not FACTS but opinion at best. For example the cost section for the Scottish Water site is under negotiation at the moment so 60-80 Million is a guess by the author of the leaflet. Longevity is also speculation and who is to the say the new build parts of the school if the refurbishment was to go ahead would last >30 years either? Also the Build as agreed by the architect in favour of refurbishment admitted that the whole process would take 7 years with either option.

So “key facts” should have been titled “Best Guess”

Other parts of this doc were also incorrect

“The Fairmilehead option will take longer in the pre-construction phase..” This was debunked at the meeting in Sth. Morningside on 6th Nov. as all parties agreed 7 year timetable was realistic for either option of which the pre-construction phase would take 3 years.

This should be about what is best for the pupils, my opinion is that if the WHOLE school can be decanted to another location for the duration of the whole build then yes a refurb is possible. If not I would not want my children to be educated in a building site for 4 years (as per the project plan) distributed at the meeting. Also 4 years, whose ever heard of a build coming in on time!

Currently only 300 pupils can be decanted at one time (Darroch Annex), that’s only 25% of the school).BTW James Gillespies is operating at >100% occupancy now therefore the options to decant some to JG is unlikely.

Another doubtful statement was if a complete decant was undertaken that the building work would take 18 months – from the project plan I am unsure of the source of the estimate.

I would urge people not to underestimate the disruption caused whilst the construction of a 5 storey school block is undertaken at the gable end of the tenement block. Also all this assumes that planning permission is granted.

The council representative at the Sth. Morningside meeting stressed that the council is open to either option and is not trying to impose one option or the other and will listen to parents.

All I’m trying to say is look at this from a pragmatic point of view and judge, based on facts, what will be best for your kids schooling in the long run.

(I posted this on the Bruntsfield site also)

[Polly Purvis]

Ian
Many thanks for your post on the AfB blog.

Just for clarity, the blog has been set up by the Action for Boroughmuir group who have been working over the last two years to get a definite solution for Boroughmuir's premises issue after all the false starts round possible new sites at Fountainbridge and Astley Ainslie. The Action for Boroughmuir group is firmly behind plans for a refurbished Viewforth, and makes no secret of that. The group has been closely involved in the wave 3 discussions with the Council, and the Boroughmuir parent community overwhelmingly supported the plans for the refurbishment at a public meeting this Spring.

Some points worth bearing in mind - prior to the recent turmoil in the property market the Council agreed that the overall cost of buying the Fairmilehead site and building a new school would be between £60 and 80 million. This wasn't based on 'opinion' but on an estimated cost for the building of c£40m (the Council's estimate) and the then valuation for residential land on the south side of Edinburgh. The change in cost is due to recent reductions in the land value.

Secondly you queried the comment about pre-construction phase at the Fairmilehad site taking longer - this would take longer as a statutory consultation would have to be undertaken as its a change of use and the site would have to be "cleaned" - however the construction time is relatively short so overall the 6/7 years is just about achievable.

Thirdly you said "Another doubtful statement was if a complete decant was undertaken that the building work would take 18 months" - the 18months figure was provided by the Councils own consultants at a meeting last month, so it has been fully substantiated.

I have highlighted these points because whilst it is absolutely appropriate to have an open debate about the options, we are not just making guesses - Action for Boroughmuir has put in a lot of time and effort to make sure we do have facts. If you would like to be involved in helping to move the debate forward we'd very much welcome that.

None of us wants the school rebuild to take four years, nor our youngsters' education to be disrupted by major construction work. We definitely need a major decant and the AfB group will lobby for this. What we do need is an improved building as soon as possible !
Yours
Polly Purvis
Chair of Boroughmuir Parent Council

[Ian]

Polly,
Thank you for your response and for clearing up some of the issues regarding the questionnaire.
I feel I have to respond to one of your points:
The issue which most concerns me is representation and as such, is in response to your statement "… and the Boroughmuir parent community overwhelmingly supported the plans for the refurbishment at a public meeting this Spring".
Exactly the "Boroughmuir Parent community" whose children are far less likely to be affected by this upheaval.
I do wonder if the South Morningside, Bruntsfield and Buckstone Primaries Parent communities had been made more aware of the Spring meeting if this "overwhelming support" would have been the same. Judging by the amount of people who voted in the exit poll at Sth. Morningside last Thursday evening I think this may be far closer to a 50-50 split.
I am afraid in my position as having two small children whose education would, in my opinion, be affected very badly by a refurbishment I cannot support the position of AfB as I find it to have already made it mind up that refurbishment is the only option.
Regards
Ian