Neidpath Grazings
Thursday, April 27 2006
The future of Kingsland Primary School's new home moved a step closer on 27th April with a unanimous decision by Council to progress use of Neidpath Grazings as the school's location.
At the Council meeting on 27 April, elected members unanimously approved a recommendation to go forward with the development of Kingsland Primary School at Neidpath Grazings.
The Director's recommendation had a number of conditions on the use of Neidpath:
1. The Director must be absolutely satisfied that road safety concerns and the creation of safe pedestrian routes to the school can be addressed.
2. Planning consent must be secured. The application will be considered at a meeting of the Planning and Development Control Committee in June.
3. The development costs of Neidpath Grazings must continue to meet Best Value. One of the clear advantages of having the school at Neidpath Grazings and putting Halyrude into Kingsland's existing buildings after it has been refurbished is that this removes the need for a fourth Peebles primary school for the foreseeable future as over time this would allow the Halyrude roll to rise from the current 100 to 200 pupils.
4. Scottish Executive approval must be secured.
Violet Bank remains the fall back position if any of the conditions above cannot be achieved. Work on further investigations will begin on the field next week and full extent of the contaminants will be known during the summer. Only after this can the Council decide how to effect remediation work.
Council approval was also secured to undertake a statutory consultation on a catchment review of the schools in Peebles during
2007, looking to see if we can create a better balance and take some of the pressure off of Priorsford. This may only be
possible if Kingsland moves to Neidpath Grazings. If both Halyrude and Kingsland are in Rosetta Road the potential for congestion
in this area is likely to rule out increasing the size of Kingsland.
Unified Solutions.