New Loreto and CBS
MULTI-MILLION EURO PROJECTS BOTH ON SCHEDULE
TWO multi-million euro projects that will change the face of schooling in Wexford town are only a few months from completion.
They are the Loreto Secondary School, being built on a greenfield site at Clonard, and the CBS secondary and primary schools, which are expanding on the existing site in Thomas Street Both should be open well before Christmas.
The 900-student Loreto development, the first new secondary school built from scratch in the town since the mid-1870s, is on a greenfield site off the Duncannon Road at Ballynagee.
Because of the tightness of the site, the new €10 million CBS schools will see the new secondary school retain the same number of students at 600 as at the old premises, while the junior school will expand its student numbers with 12 classrooms instead of the nine it currently has, which accommodate 253 pupils.
Loreto Principal Billy O’Shea said everything was on course for an opening at the end of November.
‘At this moment in time we are working towards the second half of November,’ he said.
‘It will be a very exciting time for eveyone and we’ve had a number of visits to the new school over the past weeks and months and have been taken aback by the amount of space and facilties we will have.’
Mr O’Shea said there will be an induction day for staff in the coming weeks and introduction meetings for the students.
He said he there was no update on what was being planned for the existing school building once the school moved.
‘That’s a matter for the Loreto Trust board,’ he said.
CBS Principal Michael McMahon said the building project was going well and was very much on schedule.
‘The latest update is that we hope to moving in sometime before Christmas, but the exact date is not decided yet.. we hope to be moving in sometime before Christmas,’ he said.
Mr McMahon said he had been over the new school buildings on a number of occasions and it was exciting to see them taking shape as the works debris was removed.
Speaking both about the CBS and the Loreto, he said both were fabulous, state of the art schools that will benefit the town for generations to come.