Parents' anguish after £75m Dargavel school roll blunder

Families person said they look splitting their children betwixt antithetic schools oregon moving location aft a assembly miscalculated the fig of places needed for pupils.

Dargavel Primary successful Bishopton, Renfrewshire, opened past twelvemonth with a capableness of 548.

The assembly has apologised but parents accidental they person been near "devastated".

People surviving successful the newbuild colony of Dargavel accidental they warned Renfrewshire Council for years that the delayed superior schoolhouse was going to beryllium excessively small.

A report commissioned by the section authority successful 2017 suggests that plans to adhd 1,400 homes to the improvement connected the tract of a erstwhile munitions mill would effect successful 854 superior schoolhouse places being needed.

Last year, assembly officials admitted "significant errors" had been made with its forecasts and betwixt 1,100 and 1,500 superior schoolhouse property places would present beryllium needed successful this country implicit the adjacent decade.

The saga has near Laura Digby, who lives little than 500 yards (457m) from the school, worrying astir the aboriginal for her two-year-old lad Noah.

His sister Orla, 10, attends Dargavel Primary and is owed to permission the schoolhouse successful 2026, erstwhile Noah is meant to commencement there, but the accrued request connected places means the household faces years of worry.

Laura said: "The quality was beauteous devastating, I'd lone conscionable had a babe truthful I knew arsenic soon arsenic they came retired with that determination was going to beryllium problems with Noah perchance getting a spot successful the school.

"I tin spot the schoolhouse from my beforehand door, erstwhile he's aged capable to locomotion connected his ain I'll beryllium capable to ticker him spell from the model - it's 1 of these reasons I moved here."

The 39-year-old said she would commencement "looking astatine alternatives" if Noah does not get into Dargavel Primary and Orla does not a get a spot successful the catchment precocious school.

She added: "I wouldn't privation to determination from here, I've truly enjoyed it, it is simply a large assemblage - it has conscionable been earnestly fto down by the council."

David McLaren is different genitor disquieted astir the concern and whether his four-year-old lad Blair volition beryllium capable to articulation his brothers, Rory and Finlay, astatine Dargavel Primary.

He said: "There's a batch of concerns; going from the superior schoolhouse - bash we get our youngest successful the aforesaid schoolhouse arsenic his siblings - past successful a mates of years' clip erstwhile oldest Rory is going to precocious school, is determination going to beryllium abstraction successful that school, is the prime of acquisition going to beryllium determination due to the fact that of its size.

"We've got friends who are already talking astir moving away, purely from an acquisition perspective.

"It is simply a hard task for them [the council] successful presumption of being capable to foretell the aboriginal but I deliberation the information they were being advised by the genitor assembly that their calculations are incorrect, and the information they didn't perceive to that is precise disappointing.

"And present the outgo to the payer is going to beryllium important excessively to rectify that."

A caller study by Renfrewshire Council astatine options to code the occupation said the outgo of a caller superior schoolhouse successful Dargavel, susceptible of accommodating 800 pupils, would beryllium up to £45m.

In addition, an enlargement of Park Mains High School successful Erskine, to accommodate 400 other pupils, would besides beryllium required with an estimated outgo of up to £30m.

Alan Kelly, president of the Dargavel Primary Parent Council, said galore parents were present disquieted that Park Mains volition not person capable capableness and said the concern is "causing radical a batch of accent and anguish".

He added: "There is not suitable schoolhouse proviso for each the children who are going to beryllium present - the assembly has massively fto the assemblage down.

"Going backmost to astatine slightest 2018 determination were assemblage groups voicing beardown concerns that the schoolhouse is not large enough, the fig of houses importantly accrued from astir 2,500 to 4,000 and Renfrewshire Council kept the plans the aforesaid - that is wherever it has gone wrong."

An autarkic reappraisal into the circumstances of however that roll-projection mistake was made is owed to beryllium published later.

A spokesperson for Renfrewshire Council said: "We apologise sincerely to the Dargavel assemblage and afloat admit their vexation implicit the issues with schoolhouse capableness successful the area, owed to important errors antecedently made erstwhile calculating projected pupil numbers.

"Our absorption is connected moving with the assemblage to enactment successful spot the champion imaginable solutions for superior and secondary schoolhouse provision."