‘WHAT a mess Fife Council are making of their schools policy. There are few things a Council can do that is more guaranteed to get communities up in arms than muck about with childrens’ education and local schools are like totems. There can be sound reasons for closing a school but any decision to do so must be taken carefully and sensitively and wisely.

Unfortunately, care, sensitivity and wisdom have been sadly lacking in this whole sorry process.

I have had reason to raise, in the past couple of weeks, concerns about the way in which the future of four separate schools within Fife is being handled.

I have written to the Cabinet Secretary for Education giving my backing to the request from parents and the local community to have the decision to close Tanshall Primary, in Glenrothes, ‘called in’ for Ministerial consideration.

It is clear to me, as it is to many folk in the area, that the consultation process that Fife Council carried out in the run up to taking that decision, was severely flawed and the closure decision has been taken despite huge local objections.

I have also written backing up the formal complaint that has been lodged by Crombie Residents’ Association about the conduct of Fife Council in their handling of the school estates review as it has affected Crombie Primary School.

The original proposal to close the school and rezone the area as part of the catchment for Cairneyhill was, thankfully, knocked back – and no wonder given that it made no sense at all - however, the consultation process has somehow been magically rolled over to cover a new proposal that Crombie be closed and rezoned to Limekilns. This, despite the fact that they, themselves, originally said that this option was not viable.

Meanwhile the community around Wellwood Primary, who have accepted from the outset that their school will close, is calling for that closure to be delayed pending construction of a major residential development, which will include a new school, in the immediate vicinity. They believe that Fife Council has misrepresented the position regarding the timescale for the construction of this school and that they have failed to take proper account of the facts.

Then, of course, we have Pitcorthie Primary, which has probably had the most publicity of all with its future having featured so prominently in campaign promises during the Dunfermline by-election.

Councillor Brian Goodall’s urgent motion against the closure of Pitcorthie Primary School and Nursery was not discussed at last week’s City of Dunfermline Area Committee meeting, as the Labour chairperson did not allow it to be tabled. He has, however, redrafted the motion and it has been submitted for the next meeting of the area committee on the 9th of April. His motion is asking the area committee to agree that the school should not be closed and that the area committee should convey that view to Fife Council’s Executive Committee when it meets to decide the school’s future on the 15th April.

All of this matters hugely. Because schools are about our children’s future, they are the buildings in which our children spend large proportions of their time and they can be at the very heart of a wide range of community activity and interaction’.