Is £15.5m for a new grammar school short-changing Kintyre?

AT LAST the first turf has been ceremonially cut and construction is officially underway for the latest incarnation of Campbeltown Grammar School.

It is one of two new high schools being built in Argyll and Bute, the other being Oban, at a reported cost of £36 million, which is 2.3 times as much as is being spent in Kintyre.

Oban currently has a roll of 900 and Campbeltown is slightly less than half of that but is forecast to grow with the expansion of CS Wind’s operations.

Are the people of Campbeltown being short-changed and given an inferior building with perhaps another short lifespan? The answer is certainly yes, as Scottish

Construction News reported, in March, that Morrison Construction had signed a £60 million contract with Argyll and Bute Council.

If the cost of the Oban project is £36 million, it does not take a Higher in maths to work out that Campbeltown’s build should be worth £24 million. What is happening to the remaining £8.5 million in funding?

The previous grammar school is long past its best and overdue for replacement. In the town there are two former grammar school buildings which are still going strong. One, Grammar Lodge, was left to decay but was salvageable and has been turned into an upmarket guesthouse. The other is the Community Education Centre which is in daily use.

With some foresight, and by combining the decaying old police station, would it not have been possible to create a town centre grammar school?

Instead it looks like Campbeltown is getting another cheap block which will need replacing in 30 years.