‘Let’s reopen Achaleven Primary,’ say Connel mums
Parents are campaigning to reopen Connel’s mothballed Achaleven Primary School, or use the building as a preschool, as councillors decide on options for its future next week.
Children in Connel now either go to Lochnell or Dunbeg Primary Schools.
Local mum Stephanie Irvine told us: “My husband and I helped reopen the school last time it closed, putting our two daughters through the school P1 to P7. We have a feeling of disbelief that the school is in this position.
“We need to fix this for the cohesion of the village. You have children at one end who will not meet children at the other end until high school. It is dividing the village. The school should be the beating heart of the village.
“We now have a lovely group of families interested in finding a future for the primary school: a small group with babies and toddlers.
“Families here are starved of pre-school places. We have this lovely building, but we need to provide what the community needs. We have asked the council for a pre-school and the council said no, so parents have had to go to Lochnell.
“In the village, how do you get to pre-school? How do you do a job? If you do not have a car, how are you going to get there? The buses are cut back. We need pre-school on our doorstep.”
Another local mum Stacey McGowan said: “My husband and I would love to see the school reopen in time for our daughter to attend. It is really important that she can walk, scoot or cycle to school.
“My husband was informed at the local consultation that the school catchment area will change, so if the Connel school doesn’t reopen she would go to Dunbeg, which from Connel has no active travel options for a child.”
Local couple Connie and Scott McKillop added: “We would like our son to be able to go to school in the village that we live in, enabling us to walk or cycle with him to school.
“Having a school in the village would bring the community together, and hopefully welcome more families into the village.
“We would be delighted if a pre-school opened, as it would mean children can make friendships and progress through their education as a community, supporting one another.”
The council’s community services committee decided to mothball Achaleven Primary School in June 2021 on “a temporary basis”, because it had no pupils that August.
Argyll and Bute Council said so far it had undertaken a “preliminary engagement exercise”, not a “consultation”, to inform an options appraisal on the school’s future.
A drop-in community engagement event was held at Achaleven Primary on December 1 2022, to gather views on possible options. The council said it “was publicised in the same manner as all other engagement events held by the council to discuss options for the future of mothballed schools”. Five members of the community attended.
The options appraisal for Achaleven Primary School will be considered by the community services committee on Thursday March 9, and its findings will be decided on by councillors.