The Arbroath Schools Review: cheaper and more cost effective alternatives

The existing two urban schools could be refurbished for a fraction of the cost of a new build, leaving money available to improve other schools – including three other Arbroath schools in urgent need of this. One is currently full and two are already overcrowded, with a new estate to come on-stream for one of them.

The council denied that the two town schools planned to close could be refurbished for less than the cost of the new build in which they are proposed to come together.

They claimed that this would be throwing good money after bad and that refurbishment of the two schools would exceed the new build cost of £8 million.

HMIE said: ‘However, the council has yet to set out sufficiently clearly how its proposed building design will result in specific improvements to learning for children.  The council has given extensive consideration to a range of options, including using either of the existing sites for rebuild before consulting on building a new school on the proposed site’.

When HMIE wrote this, they had not been given the information the council possessed and which was later revealed under FOI – that a surveyor had said Muirfield was eminently suitable for refurbishment; nor did HMIE know of the professional estimate of that cost.

 FOI revelations

In response to a request for the detail of refurbishment costs, the Council provided only two hand written notes which costed refurbishment on a square metre basis.

These showed high repair costs.

Further FOI requests eventually produced full surveyor reports from 2009. These detailed the work required on the schools.

The Council’s Chief Surveyor costed the works listed at £500K for one of the schools (Muirfield), but this did not include a heating upgrade.

A heating upgrade had apparently been planned for Muirfield but had been diverted to an almost identical sister school at a total cost of under £50K.

The surveyor concluded that Muirfield was suitable for modern education and could be upgraded.

Conversely, in prioritising the new build, it was noted that one of the schools the Council planned not to upgrade in phase 1 of the project (Wardykes) was in serious need of repair in the shorter term; and was not considered by the surveyor to be suitable for refurbishment.

NOTE: Read the detail for yourself

The lead story, of which this is an investigation detail, is: Miles more on Myles: Angus Council, FOI and Arbroath Schools Review.

Choose which other parts of this investigation you wish to read in detail and in what order. Most are short – but for obvious reasons the piece on the FOI revelations on the two ‘public surveys” is more extensive.

• The Arbroath School Estate Review
• The scandal of the public opinion surveys
• Costs and funding of the proposed new school
• The educational benefit of a primary ‘superschool‘ of 500 pupils
• Cheaper and more cost effective alternatives
• Traffic risk to small children on the Westway town bypass
• Council determination to proceed with this project at all costs
• The political situation at Angus Council