2005 Has been a significant year for Banavie Primary School. In June a high point was reached with all the school community justifiably enjoying the wonderful celebration of 40 years of life of Banavie primary in the current building.
However the New Year began with the somewhat unexpected news from the Highland Council that they envisaged our future in a combined Banavie and Caol new school build. The response by parents to the School board’s questionnaire about the proposed merger of the schools certainly confirmed the view that currently support for the
Banavie School amongst parents is very high with a genuine positive ethos accompanied by a desire to develop further as a community school.
This demonstrated genuine reassurance for the school staff.
The well attended public meeting in February 2005 at the school in the assembly hall with Highland Council laying out their proposals and rationale for the proposed merger with Caol however clearly demonstrated the fact that funding for the ever increasing maintenance and future upgrading costs required for Banavie was not included in any future budget.
It was stated by Highland council that if the parents did not accept the fact that the two schools were to be merged there would be no money to be spent on the upkeep of the fabric of the existing building housing Banavie Primary and that there were plenty other schools out there that would like to be merged and upgraded and be housed in a 21
st century school building.
Problems with the heating and ageing boilers in Banavie have been only too evident throughout the year and there is an estimate of at least £70000 required to modernise the system.
With careful consideration of all the factors affecting the future pupils and staff at the school it was important that the School Board and Kilmallie Community Council should be involved from the start with the ‘Caol, Banavie and Corpach Education Provision Steering Group’ which first met in April.
Any such proposal for an amalgamated school would still need to be put out to public consultation There is a detailed statutory process that is set out in the Education (Scotland) act 1980 the process would begin with officials taking a paper to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee seeking agreement to undertake a consultation, the paper would provide background and would ask for an agreement in principle a detailed paper with proposed location sites identified would then be put to the Lochaber Area Committee to seek approval to consult. The paper would contain an option to maintain the status Quo.
Assuming the Committee agreed the paper would then be published Adverts would appear in the local press ,community centres etc A public meeting would be held at 14 days notice and everyone who attended would also be invited to make written representations MSPs and MPs would also be involved in the process.
Following consultation all letters submitted notes of meetings notes of telephone conversations are put to the ECS Committee for consideration any decision taken by the ECS Committee would then be submitted to the full Highland Council for approval. If either community reject the proposal the Council could decide to maintain the status quo.
There have been 3 meetings of this steering group which is made up of a lot of Council officials, reps from both Kilmallie Community Council and Caol, various parents and the two Head teachers, the last meeting being on
the 28th June 2005.
The next meeting is proposed for early January and so far little progress has been made and the big hold up just now is the group is waiting to hear if the proposals would be included in the ECS capital plan.
There are numerous project proposed for inclusion within the Capital plan. In Lochaber the Council has already made commitments to a new
Acharacle Primary School and a new school of residence for Mallaig.
And there is a need to consider investment at Lochaber High School, Lochaline primary school and Roy Bridge Primary as well as a new Caol/ Banavie school. The 2 factors which determine which projects are approved are Money and the political decision –making process.
The Council Have drawn up criteria for investing in schools and the new Banavie /Caol School would meet several of the criteria for such investment.
Is the money required for Lochaber High School and the proposed Banavie /Caol School in opposition in terms of gaining investment I hear you ask: - they are not in competition since it is possible both could be approved but there is certainly an element of competition between the various projects being proposed for the Capital plan.
There is only a finite amount of money approx £10 million a year in total within the Capital Plan.
With the possibility of further funding from the ‘Budget Working Group’ or from capital receipts e.g. the sale of the existing land the schools occupy.
The Council expect the cost of providing a 250 pupil 21st century School to be approx £6 million.
The Brief for the design of the proposed new school would be drawn up in consultation with the Communities and discussion would take place on what educational and community facilities were appropriate the former would include examining the number of classrooms required the need for special needs and pre school facilities and the level of IT provision. The latter would look at community priorities.
Timescale till completion of the new School would depend on when the project fitted in to the 5 year Capital Plan feasibility studies require 3-4 months to be done properly, outline designs would then take about 2-3 months and detailed designs would take 3-6 months. All told it would take about 12-15 months to reach tender stage and 2- 2.5 years before the school was operational.
It is also necessary to work through the consultation process during which time the actual site of the School would be chosen.
