Pausing for reflection

Due to some unpleasant comments that have been posted earlier today, this website will not accept comments for the time being to give everyone a chance to reflect on what has been said and whether it is in the spirit of open and honest dialogue.

We hope that this action can be revoked in the near future.

The £10.3m question

During the course of some reasoned debate within the Meeting at Club Romano comments, an interesting question has been posed:

Anonymous said...

To everyone who is against the proposed move to a new site I have one question. The council have stated that they need to sell the land St. Joseph's is currenly on to fund the building of a new school. If you want the school to remain on the exisiting site where is the money coming from to do this? The teachers have stated that the school is now not suitable for modern day teaching. I have read lots of views and concerns about why the school should not be moved. Do our children not deserve to be taught in suitable surroundings?

April 21, 2009 6:48 PM

To initiate discussion, the council's proposal 69-2009 states in section 3.1:

"The estimated cost of building 2 x 1 stream primary schools with 6 additional
classrooms, a nursery and full ancillary accommodation totalling approximately
4595m2 is £10.3m based on a start date of Q1 2010 and a completion date during Q2
2011. This project can be funded from capital receipts (£2.05m) and prudential
borrowing from revenue savings £0.6m) and the balance (£7.65m) will have to be
funded from capital receipts from the sale of school sites vacated as part of the PPP
project."

Note that the term "PPP project" does not refer to this proposal because it is not PPP. At the St Joseph's consultation meeting it was confirmed that the £7.65m is already available.

Meeting at Club Romano

Today's meeting at Club Romano was a great success! It was well-attended with over 50 parents, parishioners, residents, councillors, press and other interested parties. The presentations were well received and everyone participated in an open, fair, informative and reasoned debate.

We are delighted that so many people came to listen and ask questions, despite the lure of the sunny weather outside the club - thank you.

We hope that the handouts at the meeting will provide you with information to help you write to your local Councillor, who is an elected member of the Education Committee. This information will be published on the website in the near future. The Director's report is anticipated imminently and we look forward to reading this.

We have added a proforma letter to the website and you can print it or download and modify it if you wish to share your concerns with your local Councillor, or to one of the 5 non-elected members.

The consultation period ended on 6 April, but we anticipate that the Committee will vote on the proposal at the next meeting, which is scheduled for 27 April. Therefore it is very important that you write to your Councillor urgently. We have already sent them the handouts but please let them know of any specific or additional concerns that you may have.

The list of all 29 Councillors and their contact details (phone, address, email, surgery dates/times) is available on the Dundee Council website.

Please also continue to raise awareness of the concerns about the size and suitability of the site by sharing this information with your friends and neighbours.

Anonymous posts allowed again

Following feedback from visitors, we've decided to allow Anonymous comments once more. Please be sensible with this: use the Name/URL option rather than posting completely Anonymous comments, and be consistent so that others can follow the trail of comments that you leave.

Also, comments are permitted without moderation, but if this is abused, all comments will have to be moderated before being published, which will delay adding your comment to the website.

Note: if you're having trouble locating the comments, just click on the Title of the blog post. This will show you the entry followed by comments, as well as a text box to post your own comment.

St Joseph's Primary School Proposed Move - Open meeting

An Open Discussion Meeting for all Stake Holders including Parents and Carers of Current and Future Pupils, Parishioners and Local Residents.

New Urgent Information has become available regarding the City Council’s Proposal for New Schools in West End.

Time to Reflect and Question, at:

3 p.m.,
SUNDAY APRIL 19
CLUB ROMANO
16 West Wynd, Dundee (Off Perth Road)

Website reopened for discussion

The Council's public consulation period ended last week on 6 April 2009. We hope that you were able to make written representation to the Project Director, Gillian Ross Pond, in time for the deadline.

We have been advised that the Director of Education will now review all the representations and write a report to go before the Education Committee to consider whether to accept or reject the proposal. All 29 local Councillors will be involved in this decision so it is important that you let your local councillor know your views and if you have any concerns.

We are advised that the date of this event has yet to be confirmed, but it may be near the end of this month. We are therefore reopening this website for comments and open discussion.

In order to ensure clarity in the discussion, comments can only be posted if you have signed up to one of several online systems. Although you can no longer post Anonymous comments, you can sign up to one of these systems using whichever nom-de-plume you wish (as long as it complies with the system's terms and conditions). This should make it easier to follow discussions.

No more comments

The end of the public consultation is almost upon us and we have decided that no further comments should be posted to the blog.

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the debate thus far. We hope that you have found the information and discussion useful and interesting.

Please remember to submit your written representation to Gillian Ross Pond by 6 April 2009, whether you are in favour of the proposal as it is, or if you have questions and concerns.

Press coverage and access to our document

The Evening Telegraph has published articles in recent days covering the Council's proposal to build new schools on the Logie site and has today printed a letter from Will K. Laing.

The original article from 31 Mar doesn't appear to be online but our response is here:

http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/output/2009/04/01/story12868751t0.shtm

They have also printed a letter from Will K. Laing in favour of the proposal as it stands:

http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/output/2009/04/02/letters.shtm

Note: if you know anyone who is interested in reading the document but doesn't have internet access and did not collect one of the handouts, perhaps you could print a copy for them or direct them to a public library?

Write to Gillian Ross Pond by 6 April 2009

This blog site was started with the aims of:

• distributing information gathered by parents
  
• encouraging open debate and questioning of the proposal
  
• countering some misleading arguments that were being put forward
  
• and leading hopefully to a better informed outcome
  

We hope it is achieving these aims.

We hope that as many stakeholders as possible will write to Gillian Ross Pond, irrespective of their views on the proposal. We believe that the Council can only be helped in its decision-making by more people contributing to the consultation process. Whatever the Council decides, let's urge them to ensure that St Joseph's, Park Place and Park Place Nursery get the investment they deserve.

Article in the Evening Telegraph 31 March 2009

The Dundee Evening Telegraph has published an article in yesterday's edition (31 March 2009, p10) with quotes from the website and comment from representatives of Dundee City Council, the Bishop of Dunkeld and Councillor Fraser Macpherson.

The West End Parents group did not contact the Evening Telegraph to request this publication.

Whilst we acknowledge the additional publicity this article generates, it would appear that our aims may have been misunderstood. The article states:

1. "Parents opposed to a new shared primary school campus in Dundee's West End..."

• The West End Parents are not opposed to a new school, nor to a shared campus: we simply have some serious concerns about the size and suitability of the proposed site for bring two primary and one nursery school together.

2. "Claimed that sex offenders and drug addicts could pose a danger to pupils"

• Nowhere on the website do we make this claim. The statement, as written by the Tele, is self-evident but our Questions and Concerns document does not make any "danger claims", we are simply asking the Council to check whether sex offenders and drug addicts are in the vicinity of the proposed site. This is not intended to be scaremongering: the question was posed to the Director of Education at one of the consultation meetings and he has promised to investigate this with the Police.

3. "No evidence has been produced in support of these allegations"

• No allegations have been made. We have only posed the question, asking for information regarding the truth from the Council. Our sources have asked to remain anonymous (for obvious reasons) and we have asked the Council to check. Time is running out for the consultation process and we felt there was no alternative choice but to include these questions on the public website. If the claims are untrue, please let us know. What do local residents think?

4. "The website states, 'The proposed site is overlooked by tenement housing'"

• Yes, this is a fact. However, we did not intend this to be social commentary on the type of residents of tenement housing. Many of us, like the concerned commenter last night, live or have lived in tenement housing. The point is there are multiple residences overlooking the play areas of the new site. The current site for St Joseph's does not have this concern and Park Place is only partially overlooked.

5. "...does not meet minimum statutory requirements, and questions the availability of nearby playing fields...clearly too small and would deny [the children] the space to which they are entitled according to Scottish Government regulations."

• Please, please read the cited references and make up your own mind. If there are other relevant documents, please provide citations for these in the related blog post. We have made these claims based on the regulations that we have identified, either within the group or following discussion with the appropriate Council or Government body.
• When asked about this at consultation meetings, the Director of Education responded that there are "special privileges" that can be dispensed by the Government for sites such as this in an "inner site environment".
• The School Premises Regulations (Scotland) 1967 as amended in 1973 and 79 do indeed include clauses such as 7(6):

Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that it is impracticable or would be unreasonable to apply the standards prescribed in this regulation to a particular school building. the area of the site for that school building shall be such as may be approved.

• However, is this what we aspire to for the children in a new build?

6. "Bishop open to discussions"

• Our Questions and Concerns document is not a religious document. While we anticipate that some parents from St Joseph's school and parishioners from the adjacent church may have concerns in regard to the proposals, we represent the views of a group that have questions and concerns about the size and suitability of the new site.

7. "The Diocese is aware school rolls are shrinking..."

• This is untrue in the case of Park Place Primary, Park Place Nursery and St Joseph's Primary schools: the Council's roll projections (section 4.3) indicate anticipated growth - 436 pupils for 2008/09, 445 for 2011/12.
• At consultation meetings, the Director of Education also stated that there is an expectation that rolls for Park Place Nursery will rise by 20-40 places.

8. "Parents...are being urged to write to the council's project director Gillian Ross Pond by the start of next week"

• Yes, please do make your views known to the Council, but only after you have been able to make an informed decision. If you have any questions, contribute to the discussion on this website, or call Ms Ross Pond on 01382 435161.