SNP group leader Peter Grant has accused Fife Council of “shameless scaremongering” after he said officials claimed motorists are taking a shortcut through a Glenrothes school with only one vehicular entrance.
Mr Grant, the leader of the opposition on Fife Council, said one of the reasons stated for closing Tanshall Primary School in Glenrothes despite, he said, overwhelming opposition from the community is that the “school is used as a thoroughfare for residents (foot and car) car park unsafe”.
Mr Grant, who is the area’s councillor, said: “Anyone who bothers to visit the school can immediately see that this is a preposterous claim. There’s only one vehicle entrance to the school grounds. It’s physically impossible for anyone to use it as a “thoroughfare”, as the council is claiming.
“This would be laughable if it didn’t illustrate a serious point. It’s only the latest in a stream of inaccurate, out of date and wilfully misleading statements peddled by the administration to try and justify something that’s unjustifiable. It seems they’re now resorting to shameless scaremongering to frighten parents into giving up their campaign. How much lower can they get?”
Fife Council executive spokesperson for education Bryan Poole called Mr Grant’s comments “bizarre”.
He said: “Councillor Grant is either deliberately misinterpreting reports or is having difficulty understanding them.
“I can think of no other explanation as to why he continues to make public statements to the press, at Fife Council meetings and, presumably, to local parents that only serve to distort and misinform.
“For example, in his latest outburst he is implying that the reports have been ‘peddled by the administration’; that is simply not the case the reports have been prepared by education officials, whom he seems set on maligning.
“His behaviour was bad enough last week at the Executive Committee of Fife Council, when he maligned the education officials but he has compounded that this week by apparently maligning the head teacher of Tanshall Primary School for it was the head teacher, two years ago, that advised the education service ‘that the school was being used as a thoroughfare for residents (foot and car) car park unsafe’.
“Following that advice, improvements were made to mitigate the risks.
“No one except Councillor Grant has claimed that motorists were taking a shortcut through the school another ludicrous and ridiculous interpretation of a report and no one except Councillor Grant is implying or proposing that Tanshall is being proposed for closure because of condition factors.
“Indeed, if Councillor Grant read the report he would see the statement (section 4.8 of the report): ‘In and of itself Tanshall Primary School does not meet any of the Council’s Guiding (condition) principles’ and no one has ever claimed that. The reason Tanshall has been brought forward as a closure proposal is because we have a huge excess of places in the four-school cluster (Tanshall, Caskieberran, Newcastle and Southwood): 681 spare places. And the recommended best configuration to take us towards a more sustainable estate in this area is to close Tanshall.
“Councillor Grant is just plucking a few words from very complex reports without giving any context for purely political posturing.
“Frankly, his behaviour around this issue has been bizarre. Initially he didn’t accept there was an overprovision though he is on record as saying the school estate would have to be examined. Why?
“He then made the preposterous claim that Tanshall was being picked on or singled out. And at last week’s Executive Committee, he implied there were stronger grounds for closure in the Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy areas (as opposed to Tanshall). It is little wonder no one is taking him seriously.”