New use for empty school in Trossachs

Councillors want action

Councillors have asked officers to look at opening Trossachs Primary up to community use after agreeing to mothball the school for a second year.

While there was unanimous agreement that the temporary closure of the Brig o’Turk school be continued, Stirling Council education committee members wanted the building to be used by locals in the meantime.

Officials said the move could incur more insurance and running costs but councillors felt it was an option worth pursuing and asked for it to be investigated further.

In 2016 councillors decided to mothball the school after the roll fell from five to zero. Locals were told the school could reopen if circumstances changed.

At yesterday’s (Thursday) meeting of the education committee officials said the school could still be reopened within a few days if necessary.

The committee heard that a school could be mothballed for a period of up to three years but if the same decision is taken next year then the process of looking at potential permanent closure would have to come into play.

At present, however, this was not under consideration.

Local councillor Martin Earl said: “At the moment we have an asset sitting there doing nothing.

“There was some indication of a community group wanting access to it in the interim.”

Officials said: “The building is still mobilised as a school so we could kick that in on Monday if we needed it so it hasn’t been revamped.

“The aspirations of the community have been to have some type of fitness class in the school but there are issues around insurance and supervision which are problematic for that particular proposal in terms of how do we do that while it is still set up as a school.”

Councillor Earl said he appreciated the building could be used as a school at very short notice but that was unlikely.

He suggested the council should talk to the community about how it could be used meantime.

He said given many community groups in the council area were keyholders for community centres and council buildings and that should be something that could be investigated.

There could even be potential for sharing costs, he added.

“It just annoys me that the building is sitting there empty,” he added.

Councillor Margaret Brisley agreed, adding: “It’s a nonsense that it is just sitting there.

“If a pupil needs to go in that’s not likely to happen overnight.

“If there’s any way it can be used for the good of the community we should look at that closely because after all it is a community asset and we should be making every effort to use it as such.”

Prior to mothballing the school roll at Trossachs Primary had been an average of six pupils since 2013/14.

Some of the pupils lived in the Callander Primary School catchment area but attended Trossachs by way of a placing request.

In the 2016/17 school year there was one child living in the Trossachs catchment area who was eligible to start school but the family made a placing request to Callander Primary.

For the new session the one child living in Brig o’Turk has enrolled at Callander.

During the mothballin, children living in the Trossachs Primary catchment who live more than two miles from Callander Primary are entitled to free home-toschool transport.

If there’s any way it can be used for the good of the community we should look at that closely