Pupils plead to save school

Children have made a plea to Western Isles Council to save their school.

Some 38 pupils presented 454 letters of protest to the council’s headquarters in Stornoway.

They also lodged a petition with 786 signatures against plans to axe Lionel secondary school in Ness in the north of Lewis.

It is the last rural S2 school left in the Western Isles after rounds of savage school closures in recent years.

It was reprieved when a council decision to close it was reversed in 2012.

Parent Derek O’ Connor said: “The overwhelming opinion is that the council’s proposal to close the school has no educational or economic benefit in their plans of transferring the pupils to the Nicolson Institute.”

Campaigner Martin

“It has no educational or economic benefit”

Adil-Smith maintains there are “serious defects within the consultation documentation that are of such a severe nature as to invalidate the process, necessitating that it is abandoned in its entirety”.

He claimed the proposed receiving school, the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway, often has up to 40 pupils in a class, with science lessons taught in computer rooms without the specialist equipment.

It also struggled to recruit and retain staff, he said.

A council report says there are only eight pupils attending Lionel S1/S2 – two in S1 and six enrolled for S2.

The report highlights: “This constitutes a significant fall in the school roll compared to previous years.”

The council will debate the school closure plans in February.