After a week of mudslinging by Angus councillors, the future of Arbroath’s primary school provision will be voted on Thursday evening.
Such is the variety of options being considered by the council’s education committee, Timmergreens Primary could be improved, rebuilt or closed altogether.
Muirfield could be rebuilt as a superschool or extended to accommodate Timmergreens pupils, or just have repairs carried out. Rebuilding Warddykes is also being considered.
Arbroath West councillor Ewan Smith quit the SNP last week when it emerged the superschool plan he opposed as part of his election campaign was back on the table.
With the cost of repairs needed to bring the town’s schools up to standard running into the millions, doing nothing is not an option being considered.
An application to the Scottish Government for £3.5 million was unsuccessful, leaving the council with £10.6 million to best allocate.
In a report to the education committee, director of education Neil Logue and director of corporate services Colin McMahon have presented councillors with four options.
Option A is to carry out maintenance at all 10 primary schools at a cost £8.8 million, with almost half of this total being spent on improvements at Timmergreens and Warddykes.
They say this option “cannot be supported” from a value for money perspective as replacing Timmergreens at a cost of £4m is a better long-term option than carrying out £2.2m of repairs.
Option B is to extend Muirfield to accommodate Timmergreens pupils at a cost of £2.5m, with a further £6.2m to replace Warddykes and the remaining £2m for repairs and improvement at the other primaries.
The report states that the main advantages of this option will be that the 400 pupils at Timmergreens and Muirfield would benefit from the major improvements to the Muirfield building and the 277 Warddykes pupils would also take advantage of a new building.
It would also remove around £6m from identified maintenance and repairs items, as well as making the Timmergreens site available for development.
Option C is to replace Timmergreens at a cost of £4m, replace Warddykes for £6.2m and use £400,000 on repairs at other schools.
The advantages of this are two new state-of-the-art primaries, to the benefit of 500 pupils, that removes more than £4m identified repairs.
The main negative to this proposal is the extremely limited funds to maintain other schools, as well as the need to decant pupils.
Option D is to build a new superschool on the Muirfield primary site, costing £7m, to accommodate Timmergreens andMuirfield pupils and close Timmergreens. This would leave £3.6m to improve other primary schools in Arbroath.
Replacing Warddykes (£6.2m) and/or Hayshead (£7m) would then by the next top primary school priority.
The report states the main benefits would be a new purpose-built school that would leave Timmergreens site available for redevelopment.
The authors state: “Some reduction in the number of school buildings will significantly improve the number of pupils to benefit in the longer term and generate revenue savings which can either reduce the impacts of cuts or which can be reinvested.
“Option A is not considered to represent a value for money solution for the council.
“Options B, C and D provide an opportunity to take a pragmatic approach, while offering a value for money solution to the challenges of improving the primary school estate in Arbroath both in the short- and medium-term.”