PARENTS DEMAND COUNCIL PUT EDUCATION BEFORE PROFIT

Rising numbers of children attending overcrowded Broughton Primary School mean that difficult decisions must be made in order to accommodate them. But many parents are livid that empty, purpose-built educational premises next door are being sold by the Council as housing.

The Parent Council blames the City for closing down nearby Fort and Bonnington Primaries, and for 'brushing off' requests to convert part of the adjacent former Broughton Higher Grade School two years ago. Albany Street-based Kingsford Estates is now poised to convert the ‘annexe’ into around 70 studio flats, so long as it can get planning permission.

The Parent Council is already unhappy at lack of dedicated library/music/drama space, and inadequate room in the dining hall, but it is now also extremely concerned at the prospect of losing any further existing uses of space (for example in the gym/nursery building), or 280 square metres of playground to fit in four new ‘modular’ classrooms.

Parent outrage
The reaction of Donald Reid, a parent with three children attending the school, is typical.

He says ‘It’s outrageous there are classrooms lying abandoned in the Council-owned building next door, yet pupils are even now squashed into a space too small for proper learning.

‘The Council has avoided our enquiries about the future of the building and now has the nerve to sell it off on the sly to a property developer who'll be converting classrooms into flats and no doubt making a pretty penny out of it.

‘Now we've got the prospect of years of building work on our doorstep, no long-term answer to the school's space requirements and a negative impact on the morale of pupils, staff and parents.

‘Instead of shrugging this off with inadequate solutions, Edinburgh Council should be mortified it got its sums so badly wrong predicting a fall in pupils when in fact we're struggling to cope with a rising roll, and it should also be held to account for allowing property speculation to elbow our kids' education to one side.’

Shades of pragmatism
It may surprise some to learn that not everyone is so adamantly against a move to modular classrooms.

Whilst no-one Spurtle has spoken to regards the possibility as ideal, some say it is at least realistic. They point to Council figures suggesting the annexe would cost £5m to refurbish before children could re-use it, compared to £250,000 per modular unit. This out of a total school infrastructure budget in Edinburgh of £19.4m which has many other urgent calls upon it.

Others suggest that for financial and practical reasons, developers would not begin to consider combining school and residential uses within the same annexe building. They also argue that the Council – in this general economic squeeze – has a duty to realise the best price it can for its underused capital assets.

And to those who raise concerns about strangers moving in so extraordinarily close to the school grounds and its young children, there are those who argue – perhaps accurately, but unpersuasively in Spurtle's view – that precedents exist elsewhere in Edinburgh.

Background to the crisis
Broughton Primary is one of nine schools across the capital facing space problems. The primary school roll rose by 5 per cent last year and is expected to rise 19 per cent by 2020. City officials and locals have known about the upward trend since at least 2007, but only recently has the City Coalition earmarked an additional £15m to tackle the problem.

The story surfaced most recently when a very early draft paper for the Council’s Forum on Children and Families was leaked to the Edinburgh Evening News last month (13 May). The EEN repeated every theoretically possible solution mentioned in the paper. It failed to point out that no-one in the know at any point thought all were practically or politically possible.

An official Spurtle spoke to expressed deeply felt irritation that such an inchoate draft was: (a) leaked in the first place; (b) reported afterwards as though it represented settled policy. He said it had created a misleading and alarming impression. Education Convener Paul Godzik later moved to clarify widespread misapprehensions in a statement of 4 June. Parents, however, remain uncomforted – not least those at Broughton Primary.

What next?
Emotive and clearly focused, the Council's and school’s predicaments have all the potential to cause an unholy row. 

The 'Capital Coalition' is only just over a year into its term, and so ideally placed to make unpopular decisions well in advance of an election.

However, Broughton's organised and media-savvy Parent Council is already organising resistance. Drummond CHS parents and pupils showed in autumn 2007 (Issue 152) that apparently done-and-dusted decisions decided by experts on high can still be turned around early in the political cycle.

The Parent Council (email: broughtonparents@gmail.com) claims the support of Leith Walk Ward councillors Maggie Chapman (Greens) and Nick Gardner (Labour), and Malcolm Chisholm MSP (Labour). Time will tell what level of useful support each offers.

However, on this matter, all Leith Walk Labour and SNP councillors will likely find themselves caught between determined colleagues and sceptical constituents. Locals – including many local parents – recall generous Party promises of support in the recent past for the Splashback campaign, followed even more recently by a startlingly pragmatic decision to cut it adrift. Is councillors' credibility now blown? Or is this an opportunity for them to rebuild public trust?

Spurtle will return to this story in Issue 220, out very soon. For online updates on Kingsford's planning application see Breaking news (2.7.13) and (3.7.13).

Meanwhile, please tell us what you think. Contact us: by email spurtle@hotmail.co.uk on Facebook Broughton Spurtle or Twitter @theSpurtle

[Photo of playground, 4th from top: © Kim Traynor, Creative Commons.]

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Reactions

  I have a strong statement about this on my Facebook page [link here – 13.6.13] ... and have taken this up with the Director of Children and Families, the Director of Corporate Governance and the Scottish Planning Minister, as well as with Labour members of the Council. I am totally with the parents on this and  shall do everything I can to support them.  Malcolm Chisholm

Angela Flynn Even when I attended Broughton Primary, many years ago, the old High School was used to store our outdoor education equipment (canoes etc.) and a few classrooms were used. I think I spent the whole of p6 in there! My youngest only left Broughton last year so I know the class sizes have been slowly increasing. The whole saga is ridiculous, from the closure of local primary schools to an empty building on the doorstep being earmarked for housing. Don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't pay a huge amount of money (or any for that matter!) to buy a fancy flat in the playground of a primary school!

 Greg McMillan