October 4 2019

Girvan’s Sacred Heart Primary School has been earmarked for demolition to enable construction of a 125-place replacement school valued at £3.6m.

The 143- year old building has been prioritised for attention in South Ayrshire Council’s ten-year capital investment programme which seeks to upgrade outdated facilities and infrastructure.

Morrison Construction has been named as the preferred contractor for the build with preparatory investigations already in train to allow demolition to begin early next year. Pupils and staff have already been decanted to temporary accommodation at Girvan primary, enabling the contractor to proceed without delay.

Construction would then follow in October next year subject to obtaining the necessary planning consents.

The new school should open its doors in October 2021.

5 Comments

#1 Posted by Pleasantfield on 4 Oct 2019 at 12:35 PM

Oh goody yet more PPP 20 years cost to add to the already huge SAC total. What will this cost us in future?

#2 Posted by A Local Pleb on 4 Oct 2019 at 13:31 PM

I think you will find that this has been budgeted by SAC rather than relying on a lease and payback you would have previously expected via the now defunct PPP route.
https://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/news/record-breaking-investment-programme-is-just-capital.aspx

#3 Posted by Neil McAllister on 15 Oct 2019 at 18:13 PM

Why are we demolishing a solid building that has already lasted 143 years to build something that will probably have a design life of 30 years. I'm not saying that it wouldn't need a significant amount of bashing about to make it fit modern educational requirements but it would seem a more sustainable idea to work with what is already there.

#4 Posted by Robin B's Discount Store on 16 Oct 2019 at 10:41 AM

@Neil.

Why are we scrapping old cars that have lasted 10 years and buying new ones on 5 year deals?

Im not saying the old car wouldn't need a lot of work done to it, but it would seem a more sustainable idea to work with the car is already there.

#5 Posted by Neil McAllister on 17 Oct 2019 at 15:21 PM

@Robin

I don't have much knowledge of the car industry but I do question how sustainable such obsolescence is.

Decades ago Carl Elefante told us that "the greenest building is the one that is already built" and it seems the profession is just beginning to catch up with this. The AJ is currently running a major campaign "Retrofirst" which among other things is looking for retrofit to be the preferred option in government projects.

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