Published: Wednesday, 10th October, 2007 12:30
Looming crisis in Gala schools
By Caitlin Smith
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COMMUNITY councillors have spoken out about their fear of a schools crisis in Galashiels.
Galashiels and Langlee Chair, Bill White, claims there is not enough space in local schools.
He said: “If the rate of development continues bringing all these new people to the area, where will all the children go to school?”
Councillor White told assembled community representatives that a high number of planning applications had progressed through SBC over the last eighteenth months.
Speaking later to the Border Telegraph, he said: “Around 1100 applications for houses in Gala have been potentially filed over the last year and a half.
“What will happen if each of these new houses has even one child – then where will all the children go to school?
“There is no point waiting until seven or eight hundred houses have been built and asking where all the schools’ are.
“There’s going to be an application for 500 houses in Easter Langlee alone.
“A site must be identified now before it’s too late.”
Former Leader of SBC, Drew Tulley came forward in support of the concerned community chairman.
He said there was a “looming crisis in education for Galashiels” in the wake of a housing boom.
“This town will continue to develop substantially,” he added.
“I know Galashiels and I know that new school sites are just not there.”
And Councillor Jim Hume said: “There is a lot of planning going on in the area and if we’re getting more people, that’ll mean more school children so it is vital there is enough school provision to support this growth.”
Council representatives identified around fifteen potential sites at a 2004 meeting, though community councillors and parents vetoed all of them with claims they were unsuitable.
Suggestions had included a public park and a parking area.
Councillor White said: “There was an idea to put a school at the top of Mossilee, but this is not practical because parents would have to drive through three housing estates.
“Another site was on the outskirts of town in a field in Kingsknowe and everyone rejected that as well.”
An education spokesperson for the council denied there was a looming crisis and predicted the number of pupils on the school roll would have risen from only 1400 to 1600 by 2015.
She said: “We have estimated that each house will only produce 0.4 children and so these figures do make sense.”
Glenn Rodger, Director of Education & Lifelong Learning, said: “The last Council administration agreed that action needs to be taken to provide additional and better school facilities in Galashiels.
“We are currently evaluating all the schools through a 2007 management review and if, as seems likely, Galashiels remains the next highest priority, work will begin on preparation for this through a Planning/Technical Services/Education working group.
“Investment in the schools is already being sought through developer contribution from new housing developments in Galashiels and in addition Council funding will be provided through the next block of funding for primary schools from April 2013.”
He added: “But it is not accurate to talk about a ‘looming crisis’ - the facts are there are currently 1698 pupil places across the town (including Tweedbank) and the current school roll has just over 1400 pupils.
“By 2015 we forecast the total school roll to rise to nearly 1600 pupils.”
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