Border Telegraph | News | Shelter demo for village pupils

Thursday, 16th October, 2008

Published: Tuesday, 4th October, 2005 13:33

Shelter demo for village pupils

By Border Telegraph Newsroom

PUPILS from under-threat Channelkirk Primary School lined up at Oxton bus stop last week as campaigners claim children’s safety will be at risk if the school is closed.

All 54 of the school’s pupils queued as a demonstration of what local residents fear will happen every day if the school is closed and pupils are sent to a refurbished Lauder Primary.

Campaigners claim the bus shelter can only accommodate four people at one time, and is located at a busy stretch of road used by lorries.

Stuart Kinnear, chairman of the Channelkirk School PTA, said: “This would be the reality should the council get its way and close the thriving school. The busy main street is also the only route in and out of the village for the local haulage firm who specialise in transporting livestock.

“Transport appears to be an afterthought in the Scottish Borders Council education department plans. A couple of weeks ago the director of education was talking about the increase in obesity in children, but these children used to walk and cycle to school. Now they must sit on a bus for five miles.

“The council plans also completely ignore nursery children. They will have to be taken by the parents to Lauder, which involves four car journeys replacing a five minute walk.”

But SBC’s education department deny they are ignoring the safety of schoolchildren, and say provisions have not been made for bussing pupils to Lauder because no decision has been taken on the school’s future.

Brian Keenan, head of schools services, said: “If we have not planned on this, it is because to sit down and plan would be presumptuous. We have no idea at present whether or not it will be closed.

“If and when it is decided to close the school, we would have to do a risk assessment. We have many children that travel much further, so it is not something that we are unused to.

“If we are told that the school is closing, we will look to see what we have to do for them to travel safely. We would have to look at the pick-up point, if the pavement is wide enough, and other things like that.

“Safety is paramount. We would not be asking them to do anything that is not safe, and we would have to look at them as an individual case.”

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