Progress in the plan to build a new shared campus primary school in the west end of Dundee has been welcomed by an opposition councillor.
However, Labour education spokesman Councillor Laurie Bidwell also said not enough is being done to improve the overall quality of school buildings in the city.
At the education committee tonight, members will be asked to accept the lowest tender for the building and award a £7.7 million contract to Aberdeen’s Robertson Construction Group.
The plan to bring together St Joseph’s and Park Place primary schools on a shared campus at the former Logie Secondary School site on Blackness Road was approved by the council last September in the face of strong opposition from a group of parents who believe the site is not suitable.
However, Mr Bidwell said it was “a most welcome step in building new schools in the city.”
“In two years, children in the catchment areas of both schools will enjoy state of the art school buildings and facilities that are fit for the twenty-first century,” he went on.
Mr Bidwell said the project was part of the capital plan which was initiated by the then Labour-led administration.
“In the two years since the SNP have run the council, significantly they have not added any major school building projects to the council’s capital plan when it has been reviewed. Indeed, at the last meeting of the education committee, they refused to bring forward a feasibility study on extending and refurbishing Barnhill Primary School.
“While progress has been significant with improving the west end primary schools, I wish we could see more progress with the replacement of Harris Academy.
“Unfortunately, this has been quagmired in the delays by the Scottish Government’s Scottish Futures Trust (the body set up to help finance public building projects).
“The SNP promised in May 2007 that they would match Labour’s public private partnership government funded school building programme ‘brick for brick’ and find a cheaper way to procure new schools.
“Unfortunately their recipe for cheaper procurement did not work. It seems that the Scottish Futures Trust is aptly named, only ever talking about things that remain tantalisingly in the future.
“If we are to avoid a two-tier set of school buildings in Dundee, we need a continuing programme of school building and school refurbishment.”