TEN YEARS AGO Friday March 4 2011

New rural schools proposals unveiled by local authority

Last week saw the wheel of fortune spin again for primary schools and now Argyll and Bute Council says Southend and Glenbarr are safe from closure.

But parents from Clachan, which was safe last time round, taking in pupils from Glenbarr, Rhunahaorine and Skipness, have been left shocked after the school now finds it faces closure with its children sent to Tarbert.

Chairman of Clachan Primary School’s parent council Owen Paisley said they wanted to know why the school was originally seen as a receiving school in the first place.

‘The school is an important part of this community and I am not convinced its closure will save money. If we want children and families to come to the area we need to keep the school open,’ he said.

Argyll and Bute Council met yesterday (Thursday) when members were asked to agree to hold informal pre-consultation meetings with representatives from 12 communities that may be affected by the school estate review.

The council was also asked to agree to review the school estate ‘on an ongoing basis’ and reducing the future scale of any changes which would be considered at any one time.

Now the proposal is for Rhunahaorine to go into Glenbarr and Clachan and Skipness to go to Tarbert. Saint Kieran’s goes into Castlehill in Campbeltown. This is a paper exercise as Saint Kieran’s no longer has pupils and is mothballed.

In 1996: The two longest-serving workers at Jaeger’s Campbeltown factory, Jean McKinven and Agnes McKerral, received a special silver plate from menswear’s managing director Harry Rea to mark their service to the company.