There was good news today.  Firstly, at its meeting this morning the Moray Council agreed to delegate authority to allow decisions to be taken over the capacity of the new build.  A recalculation of the potential future roll of EHS had led to higher figures than originally forecast – this was due to the high intake of pupils into the younger years at Greenwards and New Elgin Primaries.  This agreement will allow decisions to be taken quickly when we get into detailed discussions with Scottish Futures Trust and Hubco.  The second good news came at a meeting late in the afternoon when it became clear that the draft New Project Request forms are ready to be submitted to Hubco tomorrow.  This meets the deadline and will form the basis for the start of detailed discussions with Hubco on the design of the new build.  Added to arrangements being made to meet a senior representative of Hubco on the 11th April, we can go into the holidays in a positive mood!  A lot of work has been done by a number of Moray Council officials to get us to this stage, and we are grateful to them!

NPR, RDA, SOA and KSR1 – these are just some of the initials that have become the focus of the last few days.  After the great experience of visiting a new school building that is near competition, the reality of what has to be done to get there is hitting home.  A core group of Moray Council staff are busy completing lengthy forms and calculating the proposed number of room required, the technical aspirations for the building, the costings and many other issues.  The target is to get this finished and submitted to Hubco and Scottish Futures Trust by next Thursday.  This information will allow detailed negotiations to start with the central bodies that will be overseeing the development.  Engagement with the architects will follow which will lead to the consultations with pupils, staff, parents and others on what the building will be like.  One very encouraging feature of the process is the collaboration between authorities that is already allowing us to learn from the experiences of others – and save us time!  We are on target to be ready for the 28th and therefore for construction to start in March /April 2014!

Eastwood High School: March 2013 – Click here to download a powerpoint presentation

Martine Scott (Senior Project Officer) and I enjoyed a fascinating day visiting Eastwood High School in East Renfrewshire.  Eastwood and Lasswade are being built by the Scottish Futures Trust as models for what can be achieved.  They have been designed drawing on the experience of a number of new school builds throughout Scotland – and lessons learnt from the experiences of pupils and teachers using them.  It was also good to meet representatives of the architects and construction companies that will be involved in building the new EHS and start to get to know them.  There were a lot of very exciting and positive features which will certainly be welcomed by EHS pupils, parents and staff.  To see some pictures of Eastwood and what we might expect in EHS, click on the title above for a short powerpoint presentation.

Over the last two days there have been two long but productive meetings which have moved the planning forward.  Today we were delighted to welcome a representative from Hubco to EHS.  Hubco is the body that will co-ordinate the design, finance and construction of the new build.  We were also joined on a telephone conference by 2 other members of the team.  The meeting covered a wide range of issues.  Many of these were technical and I am having to learn a completely new set of acronyms and jargon!  Along with representatives of Moray Council legal and accounting departments we mapped out the planning work that is required.  It was encouraging to hear about the level of support available to see the project through.  There is also a clear commitment to meet the target dates of March/April 2014 for the cutting of the first turf with the new building open in summer 2015.

The completion of the “New Project Request” forms will now get under way.  This will set out the details of the agreement between The Moray Council, Hubco and Scottish Futures Trust.  However, next Friday will be an interesting day.  Sadly I will miss the extravaganza planned in EHS for Comic Relief, but Martine Scott and I will be travelling to Eastwood Academy in Glasgow to see one of the first schools build under the SFT process.  It is likely that many of the features from this design will be incorporated into the new EHS building.  Hopefully, next weekend I will post pictures of the visit on this blog.