Islanders launch legal challenge over Mull school location
Argyll and Bute Council has faced significant criticism over its decision to locate the proposed new school in Tobermory, the main town on the island. The current school, also in Tobermory, incorporates a nursery, primary and secondary school, but surveys have shown that a majority supported moving the high school component to a central location in order to end the practice of some children being sent to board in Oban from the age of eleven.
Throughout the process, the council has insisted that only a single-site approach is viable, and officials ultimately recommended the new school be built on a site on the southern edge Tobermory. This advice was accepted by councillors at a special sitting of the council in Lochgilphead.
The situation has been described as an example of a 'wider democratic deficit' in Scotland, and islanders have told The Herald that the council has left them feeling 'silenced and belittled.'
The move to build a new school was originally referred to as the 'Mull Campus Project', but recent communication from council officials has stated that 'the Tobermory Campus project is focussed on creating an improved and enhanced learning environment for the pupils within the current Tobermory High School catchment area.'
The new legal action, being pursed by the Mull Campus Working Group, argues that the council's decision to limit itself to consideration of a single site, and the consequent narrowing of any consultation work, was 'inherently unfair'.
They also believe that the council acted 'irrationally' in failing to properly consider the offer of free land at a central location, and allege councillors were misinformed about the offer itself.
Finally, the group are challenging the failure to hold a formal vote on the proposals which they say contravenes the council's constitution.
The campaigners say that they were 'warned not to challenge' the council's decision to locate the new school in Tobermory, and that delays to the programme could 'jeopardise Scottish Government funding,' which they described as being told to accept the plans as they are or risk getting 'nothing at all'.
Building projects funded through the government's Learning Estate Improvement Programme (LEIP) scheme, which is being used for the new school on Mull, operate under set – and theoretically strict – deadlines, but education secretary Jenny Gilruth has confirmed in a letter to local MSP Jenni Minto that 'funding will not be withdrawn if the project faces delays, provided there is a clear and robust justification for Ministers to grant an extension to the completion date.'
The government recently announced an additional £2million for another LEIP project – a new Gaelic primary school in Glasgow – to ensure that it is completed, with the project running many months behind schedule.
A spokesperson for the Mull Campus Working Group said the council's processes were 'shoddy and biased from the outset'.
The continued: 'Before the LEIP (Learning Estate Investment Programme) application was even submitted, our community council asked to be consulted, but they were refused any input.
'The people of Mull - and in particular families and children from the Ross of Mull who currently cannot access the island's only high school – were cruelly deceived. What was sold to them as 'a school for the whole island' was never intended to be any such thing.
'We naively trusted our councillors and officials to look at this fairly, and deliver a high school that was accessible to all. But they have manipulated the process to make sure it would never be delivered. In effect they said 'sure, you can have your central high school, but only if we remove primary and ELC provision from Mull's largest town and move it 21 miles away'
'That's not a choice, that's moral blackmail.'
The campaigners say that attempts to find a mediated solution to the impasse were 'dashed' when the council refused to attend a roundtable event being organised by local Jenni Minto. They told The Herald that they had 'hoped for the best but prepared for the worst,' and that the council's decision to 'shut the door on a negotiated, constructive way forward' has left them 'no option but to take this to the Court of Session in Edinburgh.'
Argyll and Bute Council and the Scottish Government have been approached for comment.
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