Published on:
10
February 2012
Plans for a £8.7 million new primary school for Alloa West are being developed.
The new school will be built at Redwell and will house pupils from St John's and Claremont Primary Schools.
And this week the initial investigations are taking place on the Redwell site. These investigations will ensure that the ground, which contains natural peat, are safe to build on.
You are invited to send a photographer to the Redwell playing field at 1pm on Monday 13th February where Council Leader Gary Womersley, Depute Leader Mark English and Councillor Eddie Carrick will be carrying out a site visit to see the investigations taking place.
The Council has been allocated funding of £4 million from the Scottish Future's Trust for the new building and is currently working on a project brief for the new campus prior to appointing a contractor to design and build the school.
Staff, pupils and parents from both schools are working with a range of Council services to help shape the project brief and inform the contractors of any specific requirements.
Councillor Mark English, Inclusion Portfolio Holder, said: "Work will begin on site in spring 2013 and construction will take about 14 months. While this construction work progresses the existing St John's and Claremont schools will continue to be maintained and repairs made.
"The new school will provide educational benefit to the maximum number of pupils in Alloa West. It will allow for the very effective implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence by making use of flexible learning areas, indoors and out, and promoting interdisciplinary learning across stages and areas of the schools."
This week's site investigation work involves making nine bore holes in the field and inserting gas sensors into the holes. There is a possibility that carbon dioxide could be detected because the field contains natural peat. Although it is not anticipated that this will present any health concern, the testing will provide an important re-assurance of this.
The investigation is the third to take place in Clackmannanshire as part of a new resource sharing group that the Council has established with Perth & Kinross and Fife Councils. While Clackmannanshire Council has only one contaminated land officer, we do own a considerable amount of equipment such as gas sensors and an x-ray machine which can detect heavy metals. In this new arrangement, the neighbouring authorities can borrow our equipment and we draw on the resources of their contaminated land teams. This has considerably reduced the need for us to hire consultants and means we are able to carry out local investigations more efficiently, reducing the potential risk to public health.
Councillor Eddie Carrick, Sustainability Portfolio Holder, said: "This innovative way of pooling expertise and resources means we are providing a better service while delivering savings of over 65%. It means we can carry out more investigations, more efficiently, and almost entirely cut the need to hire consultants, providing better value to the council taxpayers of Clackmannanshire."