Disgrace as Bishopbriggs Sports Hall demolisted without permission - The hall cost almost £1m just seven years ago!

As reported in the local press, the Sports hall, built only seven years ago at a cost of almost £1m, has been demolished. The hall, in the grounds of former Bishopbriggs High School, appears to have been demolished without the proper permission by Morgan Ashurst. Permission is now being processed through the council.

As anyone who has read this blog will know I stated the intentions of the council to allow the hall to be demolished to make way for a new development in the grounds of the old high school.

The council rejected public consultation to build the new school on the grounds of the High School. At the time the council was under the control of the Liberal Democrats but almost all of the councilors lost their sets in the last local election.

Bishopbriggs Sports hall facing demolition - again!

CONFUSION surrounds the fate of an £800k sports hall in Bishopbriggs.

Muse Developments submitted an outline planning application in May to transform Bishopbriggs town centre as part of a £32million project.

The proposals included the option to keep the former Bishopbriggs Academy sports hall after residents opposed to it being knocked down.

A campaign group was asked to come up with a business plan to run the hall as a community facility.

Read the full story here on the Kirkintilloch Herald website.

Source: Kirkintilloch Herald

Bishopbriggs housing plans on school land put on hold

PLANS to build 50 new homes on the site of a bus terminus have been put on hold to allow councillors to visit the location.Developers MacTaggart and Mickel want to create 10 town houses and 40 flats on surplus land at the former Thomas Muir High School, in Bishopbriggs.

However, several residents have objected to the proposals because the development would be built on a bus terminus, as well as concerns over the increase in traffic and noise they fear it would create.

The plans went before the council's planning board last week and were recommended to be granted, subject to a list of conditions, one being that an alternative bus terminus is provided in the area prior to work starting on the development. 
Following a site visit, the plans will go before the next planning board on June 30. 

Meanwhile, plans to build 32 new homes on a derelict site have been continued, for the second time, to a planning board meeting later this month. 

Hallam Land Management Ltd want to create 32 new homes - including at least 40 per cent affordable housing - on a site adjacent to Kirkintilloch Road, in Bishopbriggs. 
However, the application has been recommended for refusal because of concerns over access. 
The application has been continued to allow for talks to try and find a soloution to the issue with access.

Source: Kirkintilloch Herald

Locals near the building site of the new Bishopbriggs Academy claim construction staff are ignoring planning conditions by working on bank holidays.

FED-UP residents have been forced to keep the windows closed on bank holidays.

Donald Macdonald, chairman of Woodhill Residents' Group, said: "Over two years ago, the residents' group, along with local school boards, Torr Road residents and Bishopbriggs Community Council, took part in a planning hearing involving all 24 councillors.

"We were told that the 46 conditions applied to the site would protect our local amenities and properties.

"What we have since discovered is that no one in East Dunbartonshire Council is prepared to enforce any conditions that will inconvenience the builders."

Read the full story on the Kirkintilloch Herald site here...

School buildings a ‘scandal’ claims expert

From today's Herald...

A high proportion of new school buildings in Scotland are of completely unacceptable quality and being thrown up with no regard for the future needs of education, one of the architects of the current curriculum review is set to warn.

Keir Bloomer sat on the group which wrote A Curriculum for Excellence and was chief executive of Clackmannanshire Council for seven years. He is to speak at a conference in Glasgow next week, when he will warn that school buildings too often reflect a society that places little value on children and young people.

The event is part of the Future Scotland Debates series and takes place at the Scottish Parliament on June 10.

Read the full story here on the Herald website...

Town Centre Plans - first image flats and Care Home...

Click image to enlargeCheck out this picture of the plans on display at the Bishopbriggs Library. 

You can see the plans include three storey flats, sorry 'townhouses'  on South Crosshill road. Five storey flats behind the new Morrisons. 

Now look at the size of the care home.

More posts to follow...

Bishopbriggs High School £800,000 Sports Hall to be demolished just years after completion...

The Bishopbriggs High School (Academy) Sports Hall is coming down.

Just years after it was hailed as a great addition to community, now the council plan to demolish - it cost the tax payers almost £1 million to build.

As the comment on the last post said " So much for helping our children's level of fitness or providing activities other than hanging about the streets".

From Jo Swinson's website...

"Sports hall demolition would be a ridiculous waste"

In a survey of Bishopbriggs residents released by Jo in 2008, 93% of respondents said they would like to retain the existing sports hall. (the majority also want to keep the school on the High School site)

The building, said "We have not managed to find a viable use for the sports hall." (How about a Sports Hall?)

Jo says "it shows either an amazing lack of creativity or total disregard for the views of local people"


Members of the public will be invited to an exhibition at Bishopbriggs Library on 6th from 10am-2pm and 7th March from 10am-1pm to offer their feedback on this and other proposals for the development of the town centre.

Read her full post here...

PPP deal councils axe school pitches

School sports pitches have been sacrificed by one-third of Scottish councils undertaking building programmes financed by controversial public private partnerships, The Herald can reveal today.

Official figures from SportScotland, the national sports development agency, show 10 of the country's 30 authorities that have used PPP projects to improve their school estate between 1996 and 2008 now have fewer playing fields.

Read the full post on The Herald's website here...

Public to see plans for Bishopbriggs Town Centre

New Bishopbriggs Town Centre Plans...

A Public exhibition will take place on Friday 6 March between 10am-2pm and on Saturday 7 March between 10am-1pm in Bishopbriggs Library.

Builder pulls out of plans to build homes on Bishopbriggs High School site..

Plans for the Bishopbriggs High Schools site suffered a blow when Mactaggart and Mickel withdrew their application to build 154 homes on the high school site.

East Dunbartornshire Council are waiting to see the new 'masterplan' for the whole site as requested by the council. Fears of local residents that the sports hall, built with £1 million of public funds, may not survive the plan.

Read the rest of this blog to find out the history of the Council's decision to go against public consultation and move the school to the site of Turnbull High on the outskirts of Bishopbriggs...

Delay fears over Bishopbriggs Academy build...

Parents and pupils in East Dunbartonshire face serious disruption this year after a huge private sector project to build six new secondary schools has been hit by delays.

SNP MSP Gil Paterson claims the completion of the major private finance project could be delayed by several months and could also end up with losses to the public purse because of possible compensation wrangles.

The council admits that there is a problem but says suggestions that delays could run into several months are simply speculation on the part of the MSP.
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Mr Paterson claims that Bearsden Academy, Douglas Academy, Kirkintilloch High, Bishopbriggs Academy, St Ninian's High and Turnbull High will not be ready on their scheduled dates this year of between April and summer and that they could be up to six months late. He is concerned about disruption for pupils, particularly for those who are sitting Standard Grades and Highers should the schools be completed late.

Read full Herald story here...

Bishopbriggs Academy second bottom of East Dunbartonshire schools

In a comprehensive guide to Scottish schools performance, in today's Herald, Bishopbriggs Academy is second from bottom of the East Dunbartonshire table.



Only Kirkintilloch had poorer results.

Bishopbriggs Academy is the product of the amalgamation of Bishopbriggs High School and Thomas Muir High School. Read the rest of this blog then decide if this amalgamation was for the benefit of pupils or the council...

To determine the Herald "league tables", they took the benchmark figures used by employers and universities – the percentage of pupils passing five or more Highers at grades A to C by the end of S5.

On the BBC website the 2002 results are below.

Bishopbriggs High School are second top of this table - Thomas Muir is second bottom.



Check all the results on the Herald website here...

The sinister truth about what they do with our children's fingerprints - Daily Mail

From the Daily Mail here...

They point out that no other country in Europe routinely fingerprints children and that even communist China has abandoned plans for fingerprinting school pupils because it breaches human rights.

They quote the Minister for Schools and Learning, Jim Knight, who this summer admitted that the police can simply help themselves to the children's fingerprints if they are trying to solve a crime.

As one IT security consultant in Britain, Brian Drury, said recently: "If a child has never touched a fingerprint scanner, there is zero probability of being incorrectly investigated for a crime.

"Once a child has touched a scanner they will be at the mercy of the algorithm [stored in the school computer] for the rest of their lives."

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More on the Leave Them Kids Alone website...

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Read what the BBC have to say....

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How to fool school fingerprint scanners with household items...

Fake finger fools fingerprint reader...

Moulding plastic, jelly, milk and tea are all the ingredients that Dialogue Box needed to get past one biometric security device.

View the video here at ZDnet...

Council to fingerprint Bishopbriggs Academy schoolchildren

More than 8000 pupils are to have their fingerprints taken so they can be tracked by teachers.

The scheme is to be introduced in all eight secondary schools across East Dunbartonshire, including Bishopbriggs Academy.

Similar systems already installed in schools in England cost up to £20,000 per school.

From the register

As many as 200,000 primary and high school children from the age of seven have already been finger printed. Supplier Micro Librarian Systems estimates that its technology, which is similar to identification systems used in US prisons and by the German military, is in use by 350 schools throughout the country.

More here...

The Sunday Mail

Milngavie Herald

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No Profit in PFI changes warning

Carillion warns Scotland over PFI changes

Construction giant Carillion has warned Scotland against pressing ahead with plans to replace the traditional private finance initiative with a non-profit making model.

Robin Herzberg, managing director of Carillion’s private finance division, told the construction press that the new approach “doesn’t sound very attractive”.

The proposals as they stand would not interest a profit-making firm like Carillion, he said.

Longer term, Scotland’s ruling Scottish Nationalist Party wants to ditch PFI in favour of the Scottish Futures Trust, a non-profit making company that would funnel private investment into state projects.

From: Public Private Finance

Government slammed on schools

Latest view on PPP schools...

The Scottish Government's school building plans have come under fire, with Labour branding their absence of clear spending plans an "outrage".
The Tories claimed that the SNP administration's plans to replace PPP with a Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) have so far resulted in "confusion and uncertainty".

MSPs were debating the issue in Parliament after the Nationalists had pledged to match existing school building programmes "brick for brick" going into last year's election.

But Labour's shadow education secretary Rhona Brankin, herself a former teacher, said that the party had built or refurbished 328 schools during its eight years in power with the Liberal Democrats.

She said: "We have heard nothing, not one brass farthing has the SNP said they are going to spend on school building programmes and that's frankly an outrage."

Source: Midlothian Advertiser

Hidden £65m PPP Schools bill

Surprise, Surprise...

Ministers claim they have inherited a hidden £65m liability for privately-financed school projects that the previous Labour-LibDem administration failed to budget for in full.

...by 2010-11 will be £165m as the true cost of the exponential rise in the value contracts has become clear.

These were only £17m last year but leapt to £48m this year before reaching £137m next year and a total of £165m by the final year of this parliament, all for projects that have already been built, are under construction, or have been approved.

More from The Herald

Never mind, just think of the money the council will get from selling the Bishopbriggs High School site plus the 'surplus' land at Thomas Muir and Turnbull.

Parents meeting for Bishopbriggs Academy

Forthcoming meeting on Monday 17th September at 7.45pm where parents can get an update about the latest plans for Bishopbriggs Academy from the council's PPP team.

Bishopbriggs High Site

This site is not suitable for a school!

Jo Swinson and the Lib-Dems are asking the people of Bishopbriggs what they would like on the Bishopbriggs High School site.

None of the options include a school - exactly what the people agreed to the first time the Lib-Dems asked!

What's the point if their opinion is to be ignored as previous?