Keep reading the Edinburgh Evening News as the Council has plans for a new hit list.
NEW!
On Thursday 19th June 2008 a presentation was made to the Education, Children
and Families Committee where an imaginative plan for a partial sale of the existing
school site for housing to finance a new school on the remainder of the site.
John Mayer, advocate, opened the presentation the text of which can be read
here. Further contributions
were made by Gavin StrangMP, Margaret Paterson
of Lismore Parents Action Group and members of the Bingham community
The council appears to be picking on the most needy and deprived schools as a natural consequence of the criteria the cross party forum has selected. The council denies that any decision has been made. However the article in the Evening News suggests a certain cynicism is in order.
Background information.
Lismore primary is a thriving school in the heart of a busy community, the school
has been educating children from in and around the surrounding area for nearly
sixty years. The school currently has around one hundred pupils and a nursery
school of about twenty kids and for which there is a waiting list.
However under the previous Labour council and the current Liberal Democrat /
SNP coalition there have been attempts to close the school. In 2004 the proposal
was defeated, by one vote, as councillors were persuaded of the importance of
the school to the whole community, it would destroy the community to lose it.
More recently in 2007 the current coalition propose the closure of twenty two
school and community facilities, including Lismore and the adjacent Community
Hall. These proposals collapsed when the SNP withdrw their support in the face
of widespread opposition across Edinburgh, however any joy felt by campaigners
is tinged by a suspicion that fresh proposals are returning, perhaps in 2008
or sooner.