Letter from Ken Low acting chair of Academy School Board?

I have taken the liberty of letting you know what happened at the Bishopbriggs Academy Board meeting on Tuesday night re the PPP planning application.

Basically we said to Sandy McGarvey:

There was no transport statement - how could we assess traffic impacts etc. without it?

The sports full-size pitch provision for
Douglas (roll of 1,021) is 4
Bearsden (1,174) is 3
Kirkintilloch (652) is 3
Bishopbriggs (1,146) is 2

- absolutely not was our core message over this;

It also turns out one of the documents supporting pitch provision is for the first proposal of basing the school at BBHS site and selling off TMHS site completely - not even planning had picked this up;

Education (through John Simmons) insist that the PE curriculum can be delivered - our SMT say that delivery will be extremely tight and almost impossible if we lost the use of the shared area with Woodhill Primary

We want them to investigate the land opposite us to see if we can purchase/lease a strip to put a new pitch on it

We also want to move the all weather pitch up to allow us to slightly lengthen the existing natural turf pitch and to move the athletics facilities onto the grass nearer Torr Road - at the moment the long-jump is on asphalt - surely this cannot be safe (in Douglas and Bearsden the long jump is surrounded by grass)

Overall car parking spaces etc. Bishopbriggs Academy is being short-changed e.g. the Games Hall is 594m2 (33m x 18m) whereas in Douglas it is 628m2 (34 x 18.5m) - I am not too fussed about a metre either side but when the Bishopbriggs High School Games Hall was built it was either (1.4m or 4m) short with the result non of the indoor pitches met the required standards for competition so EDC spent £1 million on a hall that could not take national competitions in football, badminton etc. What a waste and I don't want that repeated again

Many of the facilities are close to the minimum standard required and the SportScotland representative stated that they would challenge councils to provide better facilities - we did however accept that the quality of the facilities were better

Sandy has been tasked with maximising the facilities but also to maximise land receipts re Council meeting of June 2006 (well if two pitches can deliver the PE curriculum then he simply is failing in his second objective with regard to Douglas, Bearsden and Kirkintilloch - he should reduce them to two large pitches and increase the land receipts on these sites but he has not done that) - we as a Board don't want that to happen to any of these sites - we should maximise the facilities on all sites and we realise that both Douglas and Bearsden have already had a net loss of one pitch due to housing development however I don't think Sandy sees us as only having two pitches as a problem and

Fnally to fundamentally disagree that any of the land at the TMHS site was surplus (we are losing a 37m x 18m small rugby pitch (7-a-side pitch) and two Multi Use Games Areas although the shared arrangement would give us back the small pitch on a shared basis).

The meeting went on from 6.30 pm for Board members only and from 7 pm for invited participant and did not close until 10.30 pm

It was at times heated but we hope we presented a balanced but forceful case.

The next steps are to:

Prepare a response to Sandy McGarvey

Meet with associated primary school board chairs (or their whole boards and PTAs if they want)

Meet with Bishopbriggs parents on the 12th December at 7 pm in Bishopbriggs Academy

Start drafting our representation to the planning department with respect to
a) the school and
b) the surplus land outline application for housing

To prepare a media campaign to keep this in the public eye over the festive season right up to the planning application hearing and to meet with councillors over this to give them our views directly.

I am supplying this information to keep primary school board chairs appraised of what is happening and to the PPP reps of Douglas, Bearsden and Kirkintilloch secondaries as we had compared Bishopbriggs Academy to these school in our presentation.

We already appreciate the help we have had from other secondary PPP reps.

We fully support all of these schools in their efforts to get better facilities for their kids in their areas - we just want to be treated equitably by EDC in terms of sports provision.

I am grateful to Susan Murray for her attendance and input - at times what she said was very telling and was not lost on Sandy McGarvey.

I would also say that we would welcome your support if possible and we will be happy to answer any queries or questions by e-mail or phone.

Thanks.

Ken Low Acting Chair Bishopbriggs Academy School Board

I have written to Ken asking who the new Academy board members are and when they were elected. The Interim School Board has, since August, time to arrange elections.

Did anyone get an information on the Bishopbriggs Academy School Board elections?

Here is how a School Board should be elected School Board Act

I spoke to the Scottish Executive this afternoon, Ken has NO right to call himself acting chair of the Bishopbriggs Academy Board.

Good to see that Ken visited the site on the 8th of December at 4.05 pm.

The power of the Internet....