With the Madras saga in North East Fife rumbling on and still not a brick laid construction work on Kirkcaldy’s newest secondary school is running on schedule, The Courier has been told.
With 12 months to go until the gates open to pupils, the bulk of building work at the new Viewforth High has already been completed.
The £25 million project promises to revitalise education provision in the east end of the town, with interior work under way less than a year after construction started.
Raymond Johnston, property services manager at Fife Council, said that other significant steps would be completed in the coming weeks.
“With just under a year to completion, works are proceeding at a pace and on schedule,” he said.
“The next few months will be the busiest on the project as we get ‘wind and watertight’ with the completion of the building envelope.
“We have already completed the off-site roadworks to Windmill Road and the school itself is now taking shape with the structural steel frame, internal ground and upper floor slabs and staircases finished and the roofing works nearing completion.
“Works are currently progressing externally on the envelope works with curtain walling and window installation, external brickwork and render works and also internally, where we have taken advantage of the environment created to commence the installation of the internal partitions, mechanical and electrical services and other ‘first fix’ works.”
As well as a new school building, the project will deliver a community campus incorporating the Rosslyn Special School, library, local office and sports facilities.
When the school day is done, the new complex will be opened to the community, allowing members of the public to make use of sports facilities, including football pitches.
The building will replace the current Viewforth High on Loughborough Road which is more than a century old.
Initially the school will have capacity for around 600 pupils 200 more than the current Viewforth but could be increased to host as many as 1,000.
The capability to expand the school in the future was taken to cater for a housing project planned at Kingdom Park.