Edinburgh, December 11th 2008
“Fix All Our Schools NOW !” say Edinburgh Parents
Parents
across Edinburgh have joined forces to develop a solution to the City’s
funding problems surrounding the next wave of school rebuilding. The
Wave 3 schools (Boroughmuir High School, James Gillespie’s High School,
Portobello High School, St Crispins Special School and St Johns Primary
school) have been faced with a fourteen years wait now that PPP funding
is no longer available for school building projects. Parents and staff
at these schools are naturally frustrated that children are being
educated in crumbling school buildings, already identified by City of
Edinburgh Council as not fit for
purpose. At Boroughmuir, they have been waiting for a new school for thirty years.
The parents have put their heads together and drawing on professional expertise within the group developed a plan which would allow the Council to build all five schools now.
Parents are now urging
MPs, MSPs and Edinburgh Council Councillors from all parties to work
together to make the refurbishment of Edinburgh’s Wave 3 Schools
happen, not over 14 years as currently planned, but NOW. They believe
that given a joined-up approach and the political will, the money can
be made available now and pumped into the local economy to sustain jobs and maintain communities.
The
unprecedented reduction in interest rates means that it is as
economical to borrow all the money needed now, and pay it back over the
14 year period, rather than having to build the schools piecemeal as
and when the funding became available from annual budgets over the 14
year term. Either way the
effect on Edinburgh council tax payers is
the same, and spending now has the added benefits of helping to
reinvigorate the local construction industry. It could also prove less
expensive in the long run, as project costs are likely to rise with
inflation over time.
That Fiscal Stimulus thing
The UK
Government has identified Capital Expenditure on Public Projects as the
key to boosting the economy through the recession. Now is thus the time
to bring forward all the Wave 3 School Replacement and Refurbishments,
giving Scotland’s struggling construction industry with a much needed
£140Million shot in the arm, and helping protect jobs.
Real value for money
By
compressing the timelines, costs can be reduced, and disruption
minimised. With interest rates at an all-time low, the cost of
borrowing the money over a slightly longer period will easily be offset
by contractors motivated to submit competitively-priced tenders in an
otherwise lean marketplace. By procuring all schools at once as a
single entity the overall costs are reduced.
Win-Win for schools and local economy
Moreover,
treated as a single entity, the processes of procurement legislation
compliance & obtaining statutory consents for all schools for each
site can run concurrently potentially enabling all, or nearly all
schools, starting on site in the same time as it would previously have
taken to get one on site. Rather
than get bogged down in ideological
arguments about funding mechanisms – now is the time to act and get
this Capital Expenditure helping to stimulate the economy.
14 years isn’t good enough
The
alternative is that one lucky school out of the five will be chosen to
go ahead now, and the other four schools will languish, having to wait
at least five years before the next one can go ahead. Maybe they will
go ahead sometime in the next 14 years, but maybe as the country
finally comes out of recession, capital expenditure will be scaled
back, Boroughmuir may face another 30 years waiting for something to
turn up, Gillespies may crumble into a pile of bricks, and Portobello’s
lifts may never get fixed.
This is an exceptional opportunity to turn the current economic troubles to the benefit of people in Edinburgh. The time is right to fix ALL Edinburgh’s Wave 3 Schools. The question is whether politicians will stop wrangling and seize this opportunity.
For further information please contact : fix_schools_now@bruntsfield.org
This press release has been released by the Parent Councils of the following
schools
Boroughmuir High School Parent Council
James Gillespie’s High School Parent Council
Portobello High School
St Crispins Special School
St Johns Primary School
And the following primary schools in the catchment areas of the three High
Schools
Bruntsfield Primary School
South Morningside Primary Schools
Buckstone Primary School
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