Marking a key milestone...

Last week saw the opening to pupils of the new Port Glasgow Community Campus, a key milestone in the Council’s school estate strategy as it marks the completion of the rebuilding of both our secondary and additional support needs estates. This is a tremendous achievement for the Council and all those who have played their part in bringing it about.

When I look back to 2007 things were not quite as bright. The then Liberal Democrat Administration had decided to refurbish both Port Glasgow and St Stephen’s High Schools and to rezone catchment areas to fill up surplus places. Notre Dame and St Columba’s were to be merged in a new school in Dunlop Street and there were no plans on the table for refurbishing or replacing Lilybank and Glenburn Schools or the Mearns Centre.

I remember standing up at a full Council meeting just before that year’s election and being ridiculed by Lib Dem Councillors when I promised that an incoming Labour Administration would change their plans and produce a more comprehensive and inclusive school estate strategy that placed our children with additional support needs at the very heart of it.

Six years on we have delivered on that promise with the new Clydeview Academy and the new Notre Dame, St Columba’s, Port Glasgow and St Stephen’s High Schools. We have brought Lilybank and Glenburn together in the new state of the art Craigmarloch School and the Mearns Centre has been replaced by the new Lomond View Academy.

Easily the most contentious proposal back in 2007 was for Port Glasgow and St Stephen’s High Schools to share a campus. Some saw this as the slippery slope to integration while others felt it did not go far enough as they wanted a single school. I remember being warned by one of my then Labour colleagues that Port Glasgow was not yet ready for a shared campus and that we would face major opposition if we went ahead with the proposal.

He was certainly right that there was opposition, much of it covert rather than overt. It was the most difficult period of my political career to date, more challenging even than this summer’s gypsy travellers’ site consultation and that is saying something!

I am glad to say however that we were able eventually to bring most of the key stakeholders on board by developing a shared understanding and vision of what we wanted to achieve. 

The rest is history as they say.

The school communities of Port Glasgow and St Stephen’s High Schools have risen to the challenge. They have demonstrated that people of different denominations and none can co-exist in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. They are setting an example to us all.

The new campus is a superb environment, in which our children can learn and achieve their potential. It supports the sustainability of Port Glasgow by guaranteeing the continuation of denominational and non-denominational secondary education for future generations and it builds on the legacy of Lilybank and Glenburn Schools by providing our children and young people with additional support needs with the facilities they so richly deserve.

I am immensely proud of this achievement.