Thursday 3 June 2010

Brick for Brick: Just Not in this Parliament - SNP

With the Westminster elections out of the way and with Holyrood selections heading ahead at full steam it is time to look at some of those promises that the SNP made. On school building they said that they would match brick for brick the money for the proposed school building programme that the Labour/Lib Dem administration were proposing before the 2007 election.
 
So yesterday's announcement, once again, a re-announcement of the words still lacking the action that actually does match brick for brick of new schools none of which will be completed before 5 May 2011 is a sensational admission of failure. It's not like education is an area you'd think that the SNP Government could have worked on some sort of agreement with other parties, after all it is something that we all agree on. But their grand scheme for Scottish Futures Trust really has proven to be a white elephant.
 
Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Margaret Smith has said:
 
"Dozens of schools in Scotland are in a poor state of repair and new buildings are desperately required.

"The SNP pledged to match the school building achievements of the previous Liberal Democrat-Labour Executive 'brick for brick'. But this re-announcement represents the first schools planned by the SNP, and building hasn't even started yet.

"Children will be lucky if their school is built before the SNP leave office.

"The Scottish Futures Trust has been a major disappointment and the SNP have completely failed to keep their school building promise."

In Edinburgh James Gillespie High School is scheduled for 2014-15 which means it may not be complete until AFTER the 2015 Scottish elections. Falkirk will be getting a new Roman Catholic Primary School in 2010-11, in Midlothian Lasswade High School is looking at 2011-12 while West Lothian is not a beneficiary at all of the 'new' building scheme.

This post has been sent via email therefore spacing and fonts may not appear at my usual standard. Also there may be links to other relevant blog entries or other content added later today along with adding the correct tagging.

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