Top architect plans to save daughter’s school
RESPECTED architect Malcolm Fraser is drawing up new designs that would allow a Capital high school to be expanded on site.
Mr Fraser, whose daughter attends Boroughmuir High, has lent his support to parents campaigning for the school to be rebuilt.
Boroughmuir is one of five at the centre of a row between the city council and the Scottish Government over a bid for 100 million in funding.
Plans that would enable Boroughmuir High to be rebuilt on site would clear one of the few other remaining hurdles standing in the way of it being redeveloped and would put added pressure on the Scottish Government to find the money.
Until now, the council had believed it would have to find a new site for Boroughmuir as the land it is on was considered too small.
NHS Lothian’s Astley Ainslie Hospital and part of the Fountainbridge development had both been considered as new sites for Boroughmuir, but it is likely both would prove to be too expensive.
However, Mr Fraser who lives near the school in Viewforth, which his eldest daughter Issey, 13, attends, and his younger daughter Mhairi, ten, hopes to go, believes redeveloping on site is a distinct possibility and one parents would accept even if it means great upheaval for their children.
“Boroughmuir parents are aware finding a new site will be enormously difficult,” he said.
“There’s a realism and people are looking at the school site at the moment and seeing how it can be improved.
“We’ve talked to the council and had a good reception and also talked to politicians and had a good reception from them.
“There are several options that we could look at on the site.”
Mr Fraser, who looked at the buildings along with Neil Stewart, who is a Boroughmuir parent and a chartered surveyor, is now in the process of drawing up more detailed plans, although he was reluctant to go into specifics about his proposals before presenting them to parents and the council.
He acknowledged the main school block was “a very fine building”, which he would not want to alter externally, so any work is likely to involve the internal design or buildings on the outskirts.
Meanwhile, Polly Purvis, chairwoman of Boroughmuir High School Board, said the Darroch Education Centre, in Merchiston, could be used for any decampment of pupils while building took place.
St Thomas of Aquin’s pupils moved to Darroch before their new school was built in 2002.
Ms Purvis said: “A decampment is always problematic, particularly from the teachers’ point of view.
“We could move one half of the pupils at a time, and they would not be going miles across the city. For the parents there is a recognition that if you have more than one child attending the school they could have an association lasting 12 years, and each year it becomes less and less fit for purpose.”
A council spokeswoman said: “We are continuing to explore a number of different options for the redevelopment of Boroughmuir High School.
“Before any decisions are made we are awaiting the findings of a feasibility study which has recently started.”
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