First-class learning and leisure facilities for the city

Builders have been working on sites of four primary schools, six high schools and three special schools since the start of the year.

This represents more than £200m worth of new school and sports facilities.

It’s great news for the city as more communities will enjoy first-class learning and leisure facilities.
Let’s take a quick snapshot across the projects:

Primaries
Anticipation in Bonaly Primary is mounting.

In just five months they will move to a fantastic new home. Older pupils will no longer be bussed each day to Darroch, their temporary base during the works, and younger pupils will no longer use a distant annexe.

With a deadline to meet, work continues apace. Walls are rising fast and roofing and cladding are going up. Talk is of colours, finishes, layouts and landscape. It’s real, it’s happening!

A £13 million campus, to be shared by St Francis and Niddrie Mill Primary Schools in Craigmillar, will be complete by late spring.

The campus is central to the regeneration plans for the area and offers central halls, a play-park and two playing fields for use long after the school bell rings.

High schools
Broughton High, next to Inverleith Park, will be one of the first of the six new high schools to welcome students. The walls began climbing in January and will soon disappear behind a white render finish.

Inside, a labyrinth of pipes and wires is forming. Roofing will start over the teaching wings by Easter and, by summer, cladding will be wrapping its way round the sports facilities on the north/west side of the school. Similar scenes of building and change are popping up in corners around the city. In the conservation area of Duddingston Village, the new Holy Rood High takes full account of its idyllic location.

Work is pushing on at Broomhouse Road where St Augustine’s and Forrester High Schools are both being rebuilt.

New sites
Where schools are moving to new locations at Tynecastle High and Craigroyston High, a lot of work was needed before construction could start. Old buildings were demolished and cleared while sewers, water and gas pipes were rerouted and power lines shifted.

On both sites work is going on in earnest. It’s still a couple of years until the schools open but it’s clear to see that the future is on its way.

Special schools
A huge commitment is also being made to the city’s special schools with three on course to open soon. Gorgie Mills, on Gorgie Road, opens this spring, drawing a small group of secondary age pupils from all parts of town. This school replaces Cairnpark and Canonmills Schools.

In another project, Kingsinch and St Nicholas Schools will merge and then split, by age group, into two. Secondary pupils will go to Woodlands, designed on a campus next to Currie High School.

Redhall will take primary children, first of all in the old Kingsinch building. They will then move in 2009 to a new building beside Longstone Primary.