Concerned Madras Parents Disappointed in Lack of Action by Fife Council

Council Meeting

Fife Council have produced a report entitled “ Madras College, St Andrews, High Level description of Options for a Single Site campus”, for the 11th January meeting of the Children’s Services Committee. It lists five possible options to address the damning HMIe report of May 2006 which said that the evaluation of accommodation at Madras College was “unsatisfactory”, the lowest rating on the six point scale used by HMIe. www.fife.gov.uk/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication.pop&pubid=AA908D43-E7FE-C7EA-00E98734A43A7ABA

Options for Madras

The five options are as follows:
1) Status quo.
2) Redevelopment of Madras College on the Kilrymont Site (Extension and Refurbishment of Existing Accommodation).
3) Construction of a new school on the Kilrymont site.
4) Construction of a new school elsewhere in St Andrews (Fife Council owned site).
5) Construction of a new school elsewhere in St Andrews (Site not currently owned by Fife Council).

Recommendations

Sadly, this report recommends adopting Option 1, the status quo. Presumably, Fife Council are hoping that with elections in May the Scottish Parliament will be giving pre-election handouts to finance one of the other options. Furthermore, in the May 2005 report on Fife Secondary Schools (School Estates Strategy: Towards New Map of Secondary Education for Fife), Fife Council aimed to have a solution to the Madras split site problem by 2008. However, details of any time scale have been removed in this report and the “Capital Programme 2006-2011” section reports that all resources have been allocated to currently approved projects. Furthermore, the report clearly states, “no funds are currently available within the 5 Year Capital Programme...” for Options 2-5. Does this mean that no meaningful progress on the Madras problem will be made until after 2011?

Present Conditions

All parents of both present and future pupils of Madras College need to be aware of the shameful and totally unacceptable conditions that our children and the staff of the school are forced to endure. Aside from the dilapidated condition of both sites Kilrymont site is known to contain asbestos. The fibres of this material are invisible to the naked eye and cannot be detected through smell. Although assurances have been given by Fife Council regarding the safe containment of this potentially fatal substance, the continuing deterioration of the Kilrymont building gives cause for concern as to how much longer the asbestos can continue to be safely managed. It is imperative that parents should make their voices be heard at this time to motivate Fife Council to change their "do nothing and wait for the money" attitude. The Council’s perspective should be that conditions at Madras College are, by their own admission, unsatisfactory and therefore, action should be taken now to obtain the finance necessary to address this as a matter of the utmost urgency.

What Can You Do?

We opened this blog: http://www.madrascollege.blogspot.com/ to give parents information and we would like to hear from other concerned parents about their preferred option to resolve this issue. This is not an official site and we are happy to publish personal views provided they are constructive and not libellous.
We would also ask that parents are pro active in voicing their concerns regarding Madras College to their local councillor, MSP and members of the Children’s Services Committee at Fife Council as soon as possible, either by e-mail or letter. All links are given to the right of this post. Your input is important, as “Parent Power” will have a huge bearing on this issue.

Phill and Lisa Williams