School shutafter bug fear
Objectors stage a protest outside firm’s site
Pupils and staff were this week continuing to selfisolate following a Covid outbreak at a primary school.
Symington Primary has been shut down after an ‘urgent decision’ by NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s Incident Management team.
Both the school and its early years centre will remain closed for a period of 10 days.
All siblings of children identified as close contacts of positive Covid cases are also being told to stay off school and isolate.
Classes are expected to resume on Monday, June 21 - the final week of term before the summer holidays.
Symington Primary, which is attended by around 150 pupils, had earlier been identified by contact tracing teams who were working to contain the spread.
Lynne McNiven, director of Public Health at NHS Ayrshire & Arran, said: “Furthermore, to support the current risk assessment and to manage the outbreak, all siblings of any child identified as a close contact should not attend school until the confirmed period of isolation ends.
“The isolation dates for all close contacts have been confirmed in the letter previously issued to parents.
“We appreciate this is a very worrying time.
“However, we would like to assure people that every measure is being taken to protect children and staff.
“We cannot comment directly on transmission of the virus in the wider community. However, schools are part of our communities and as such when cases are identified within school settings there may be a link with the places and people who live in the nearby area.”
Meanwhile, bosses at Smiths Bar in Ayr confirmed they had taken the decision to close with “immediate effect” after two staff members tested positive for Covid-19
Posting on their Facebook page, Smiths said: “Our main aim is to eliminate any risk to our customers an d staff.
“Track & trace will be in contact with any customers affected. We have contacted a local cleaning company to carry out a deep clean of the premises immediately.”
A campaign group has mobilised to fight plans to build a £100m plus waste incinerator.
The group staged a protest outside Barr Environmental’s Killoch site at Ochiltree.
They are bitterly opposed to the proposals and claim it will pollute the local environment, bring thousands of tonnes of rubbish to the village every month and cause traffic chaos with trucks thundering through every day.
Now they are stepping up their opposition to the proposals.
Spokesperson for the group, ‘Say No To Incinerators,’ is Ann Hood, 53, who lives in the village and is one of several concerned Ochiltree residents.
She said: “We have been opposed to this since the kick-off and our group has been growing since then.
“In and around Ochiltree, a conservation village, we have farmland, peat bogs, listed buildings; a listed bridge, sites of interest.
“It’s all in danger if this goes through.
“We could be looking at scores of lorries a day going to the site if they get the planning permission.
“We’re led to believe that rubbish could be coming from
West Dunbartonshire, Argyll and Bute, South and North Ayrshire; all to be incinerated in a 75m stack.
“Additional traffic would also come via Mauchline and some residents there have concerns.”
Barr Environmental already had planning consent for an energy-from-waste facility at the Killoch site, using gasification technology.
However, they now want to update that consent through
a new planning application in order to make use of more energy efficient ‘moving grate’ technology.
Moving grate technology converts waste into ash, flue gas, and heat. Barr Environmental say that the new facility will “safely, cleanly and sustainably” manage up to 166,000 tonnes of nonrecyclable waste each year and generate enough electricity to meet the needs of 40,000 homes.
They claim the plans would
enable Barr to create 17 new jobs and safeguard 60 which are already part of its existing operations.
The application has been submitted following a public consultation, which was held between December 2020 and February 2021 with feedback used to help finalise Barr’s plans.
However, villagers say older people who did not have internet access were not taken into consideration during the exercise.
Ms Hood said: “The webinars that were set up during the public consultation were basically a question being submitted and they chose what question they wanted to answer.
“So the ones they did not want to answer were filtered out.
“There was a freephone number to register but everything else was online. There’s a lot of older people in the village who don’t have the internet, or don’t want to use it.
“They’ve not had their proper say.”
Ann added: “We are not going away and we are going to fight this as much as we can.”
Gavin Ramsey, managing director at Barr Environmental, said the proposals represented an “important milestone” for the site.
He continued: “Government policy will see us needing to manage our resources more responsibly in the coming years and drive waste away from landfill. This means there’s a real need for facilities such as the one we’re proposing. If consented, the Killoch ERP will enable East Ayrshire to manage non-recyclable waste cleanly and safely, creating jobs and generating electricity for Scottish homes and businesses.”
Council bosses at East Ayrshire are considering charging drivers to use public electric car power points.
South and North Ayrshire councils have already come forward to say the electric vehicle chargers will no longer be free in the future in those local authority areas.
East Ayrshire has 50 public charge points – double the number in South Ayrshire.
Councillors will be presented with a report on charge points after the summer - and will weigh up if fees will be introduced.
A council spokeswoman said: “As with the proposals for South Ayrshire Council, we are currently looking at electric vehicle charging points as part of our overall Climate Change and transport strategy for East Ayrshire.
“This is just part of a much wider initiative to reduce carbon footprint effectively in all aspects of life in East Ayrshire.
“As far as Electric Vehicle Charging Points are concerned, we will be taking a paper to cabinet following the summer recess to report further on our progress.”