The leader of Renfrewshire Council has said it “looks increasingly” as though a second school will be needed to cater for Dargavel Village.
Councillor Iain Nicolson spoke of the need for an “acceptable solution” after it emerged space could be required for as many as 1,100 pupils in the future.
The Erskine and Inchinnan elected member also said there remains “plenty of land capacity” at the multi-million pound Bishopton development.
It has been estimated the current roll of 463 at Dargavel Primary School in Arrochar Drive could rise to around 600 to 620 by August and further to between 685 and 705 the year after that.
The facility had a preferred maximum of 548 while previous sums predicted the register would not exceed 430.
Council chiefs have apologised for the blunder, pledging to fix it, and as a result six modular classrooms will be introduced at the site over the summer break.
A review has also been ordered in the search for answers and a quest for a permanent solution is under way – one that Councillor Nicolson expects will need to be a new school building, which could cost around £20million.
In the first part of a wide-ranging interview, he said: “There’s no doubt about it, it’s a major blunder by the council over a period of 10, 15, 20 years.
“Somebody hasn’t re-looked at that and said, ‘right, that’s on track’ or ‘that’s not on track’.
“The only thing the council can do just now is engage, as we’re doing, with the parent council and parents at Dargavel Primary School, because they’re impacted to the extent that the school’s holding more children than planned.
“What’s triggered this really, I think, was when they started getting registrations coming through for next year. Somebody went, ‘wait a minute, where are we going to put all these kids?’ That started alarm bells ringing.
“The council, at this point in time, as an organisation, can only put its hands up and say, ‘something’s went fundamentally wrong with Dargavel, we need to fix it,’ and that’s why we moved quickly to get modular units in to cope with the intake, which is going to come in August. That will hopefully give us a couple of years to put in place the permanent solution to it.
“It looks increasingly, just now, that the permanent solution will have to be another primary school.
“Schools are community buildings. The idea of taking kids from Dargavel and putting them on a bus and driving them somewhere else goes against the whole ethos of a primary school being located in its local community.
“So, there’s that aspect as well, where it’s looking increasingly like – I think it’s taken for granted now – that it has to be another school building.
“We don’t want a mega-primary school. We don’t want Dargavel Primary to suddenly become bigger than some high schools because that’s detrimental to the ethos of a primary school.
“All these things are coming into play just now as part of the discussions with it.
“The bottom line is the council is going to have to pick up the baton and provide the response to this.
“It’s not about blame. It’s not about trying to point fingers. That doesn’t produce anything. The key thing for us just now is how do we fix this?
“It’s to find what is an acceptable solution for the parents. Their expectations are their children will go to a local primary school and that’s the basis on which we’re working on.
“We know the figure for a new primary school is about £20m roughly, so that’s where we are with it.”
Dargavel Village, built on the former Royal Ordnance Factory site, is expected to have 4,000 homes by 2034.
The primary school opened its doors in January after delays to construction because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
When capacity concerns surfaced last month, Steven Quinn, the council’s director of children’s services, issued an apology to parents and carers.
He said at the time: “The calculation used at the time identified the new school roll would not be more than 430 pupils.
“However, it became clear after a higher-than-expected number of admissions over this school year, the original projection would be significantly short of what will be required over future years.
“I wish to apologise to our Dargavel families for this mistake.”
The error sparked outrage among opposition councillors and the parent council.
The school was provided as part of a planning obligation arrangement with BAE Systems, but roll projections are the responsibility of the council.
A report outlining options for a permanent solution is due to be brought before the education board in the early part of next year.
Asked where a potential new school could be located, Councillor Nicolson said: “We’ve got a pretty good relationship with BAE, the landowners out there, and there’s still plenty of land capacity.
“It’s fortunate in a bad situation that there is land capacity.
“It’s those types of discussions that are going on just now and that’s in consultation with the parent council and I know there’s meetings going on with the parents and future parents.
“That’s to try and deliver on their expectations of what a community primary school is meant to be.
“There’s no question of trying to dodge the responsibility for that. It’s the council’s responsibility and we’ll see it through to the end – we need to.
“We’re trying consciously not to get into the blame game on this one because it’s over a period of time which goes back to 2006. There’s been lots of opportunities for X, Y and Z to happen, but that doesn’t serve any purpose.
“What the parents want to know is what you are doing about it. This is what we’re looking at just now, so hopefully we’ll come up with something. The review is meant to report back early spring.
“We are working on what will be the permanent solution for the school over the same time period, maybe into mid-summer, because obviously we still need to have a lot of discussions with BAE about provision and site for it.
“That’s all ongoing.”
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