Fears over safety cause 17 schools in Edinburgh to be shut

SEVENTEEN schools across Edinburgh will close from Monday over safety fears related to construction issues, authorities have announced.

Council officials acted after Edinburgh Schools Partnership (ESP), which builds, manages and operates the schools, was unable to give safety guarantees.

Problems were discovered after part of a wall blew off Oxgangs Primary during Storm Gertrude in January.

The school was closed in March after an investigation found problems with the walls. Three more schools, all part of the same public private partnership (PPP) contract, closed less than a week later.

Contractors carrying out works at Oxgangs Primary yesterday found new issues and all schools built under the same contract will shut from Monday.

Edinburgh City Council leader Andrew Burns condemned the standard of workmanship at the PPP schools and said it had “no option” but to close the campuses.

He said: “Clearly we have every right to expect these schools to have been built to a good standard and in accordance with industry practice. We now know this isn’t the case. ESP have let the council down but more importantly they have let the children, parents and staff of this city down.We have today alerted the Scottish Government to our concerns. The safety of children and our staff is our top priority and we’re simply not willing to take any risks. ESP has apologised to the council’s chief executive.

But Andy Wightman, Scottish Green MSP candidate for Lothian, said the situation was “absolutely staggering”.

“As of Monday thousands of children and young people are going to be thrown into confusion and their families into deep anxiety because the private consortium which built and runs those PPP schools cannot guarantee pupil safety,” he said. “It’s well known that Edinburgh has a school repair problem, but it was believed to be in those schools which were decades old. It is an utter disgrace to discover that new schools are beset by the same problems, as a result of shoddy workmanship.

“A full scale inquiry is needed into this fiasco, first and foremost for the schools affected but also for this whole set of arrangements for building and maintaining public buildings.”