Five Midlothian primary schools look set to close within months in a major shake-up by the council.
At a cabinet meeting today (Thursday), councillors are expected to approve recommendations to close
Borthwick, Temple, Howgate, Cranston and Cousland schools.
It is also expected that plans for seven new Public Private Partnership-funded schools in the county
will be given the go-ahead. Several mergers may also take place.
The proposals come after an extensive review of all Midlothian schools carried out last year.
Midlothian Council Director of Education Donald MacKay said many of the schools inherited by the
unitary council in 1996 were in poor condition.
He said: "We are very aware with the building of the campus that we have almost got a two-tiered system of schools."
"We have been patching up schools since 1996." he added.
Rural schools in general lacked PE and ICT facilities as well as office space, said Mr MacKay.
He said the council had been advised by the Scottish Executive that refurbishments were not done
through PPP and that they would be done without causing too much disruption.
Mr MacKay said: "The bottom line is that any money saved from any part of this is ploughed back into the whole process."
On the short notice of the changes, he said: "If we are going to go for closures we would rather make them now rather than
two or three years down the line."
He stressed that these were recommendations and would be put out to public consultation at some point after the cabinet meeting.
He said there would be no job losses and that teachers in general were in short supply.
As reported in last week's Advertiser, it is proposed Borthwick and Temple be incorporated into Stobhill. If the
recommendations are agreed, pupils will be relocated to Stobhill by August.
Stobhill would then have new premises built using PPP funding, The new building would be expected to open by August 2006.
Howgate pupils would relocate to Cuiken which would then be refurbished using money from the council's capital fund.
Cranston pupils would move to Pathhead Primary which would then be refurbished.
Cousland pupils would be relocated to Woodburn and then included in the new catchment area for a primary school
scheduled to be built at the Dalkeith Schools Campus.
Another major proposal is to replace Loanhead and St Margaret;s RC primary schools with two new buildings on a
shared campus - echoing the situation with Dalkeith and St David's high schools.
It is proposed Bryans and Langlaw be merged and relocated in a new building. A similar proposal has been made
for Eastfield and Ladywood. New premises will also be built for Gorebridge Primary.
The Scottish Executive has provided £38.5 million for the building of the seven new
schools with total lifecycle costs of £50 million.
Mr MacKay said: "At the end of 2006 I would like to think that we would probably have
two thirds of our pupils in new or refurbished schools."