Boundary reworking behind schools row

Sir, – The ire of Western Gateway residents, while understandable, misses a couple of key points (Residents’ anger over ‘forgotten’ school promise, Courier, January 28).

Firstly, a parent is entitled to apply for a place for their child in any local authority school in Scotland, and the only basis on which that can be refused is if the school is at capacity.

If I am wrong then no doubt I will be corrected.

The downside to that is that parents are responsible for transport to and from a school that is outside the catchment zone for their home.

Thus Western Gateway residents can apply for places at Invergowrie, Liff and Birkhill primary schools, or even at Longforgan if they care to make the three-mile drive.

Western Gateway parents should also not be nervous about their secondary children going to the new Baldragon Academy.

I know several 18-yearolds who have just left Baldragon with six A-Grade Highers.

If young people have the ability and work ethic, that school will not be an obstacle to their success.

The other key point is that Western Gateway parents are blaming the wrong cause, which is actually the local authority boundary.

Until 1996 Dundee covered a wide area beyond its present boundaries, so the schools at Invergowrie, Liff and Birkhill were all in Dundee.

But then the Conservative secretary of state (pre-devolution) reviewed local government structure and Dundee was cut back to a very tight boundary because, at that time, it voted heavily for the Labour party.

The only exception to that political straitjacket was a modest area of development land at the Western Gateway.

But the new boundary also placed all three nearby primary schools into Angus and Perthshire.

So how was Dundee supposed economically to provide schooling when the Western Gateway was developed?

The new boundary did similar harm to Perthshire and Angus, leaving a secondary school population in Invergowrie that is 22 miles from the nearest school in their local authority.

It also left those from Fowlis, Liff, and Birkhill in Angus with a nearest school 10 miles away at Monifieth.

The answer to the schooling problems of all these places is for them to be brought back within the Dundee boundary at the next local authority boundaries revision, which I think is due in 2022.

At that point Dundee could, at little cost, incrementally expand the existing schools to cope.

You might want to start campaigning for that.

Gordon Fleming.

2 St Nicholas Place, Dundee.