SCOTLAND’S education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has visited the site of the new £47.2 million secondary school in Wallyford to see the construction progress.
She met with representatives from East Lothian Council, hub South East and main contractor Morrison Construction for a tour. The main works got underway in August, with the project expected to be completed in summer 2023.
The MSP was joined by children from Wallyford and Pinkie St Peter’s primary schools, which will feed into the new secondary once completed.
With around 5,000 new homes having either been built, or scheduled to be built in the local area over the next 15 years, a requirement for additional school facilities was needed.
The school will combine secondary education with specialist provision for young people with severe and complex needs, a dedicated Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths (STEAM) centre, as well as community and sports facilities.
Shirley-Anne Somerville said, “East Lothian Council’s new secondary school in Wallyford will provide high-quality, up-to-date facilities for children and staff and will be an asset that parents and the entire community will be proud of. The Scottish Government’s priority is to ensure that our children or young people are educated in high quality buildings and ensure equity of provision. This will be the first school to start construction funded by our £2 billion Learning Estate Investment Programme which aims to benefit around 50,000 pupils across Scotland by the end of this Parliament.”
Roddy Clark, hub South East’s operations director, added, “I’m delighted to welcome colleagues from East Lothian Council and Scottish Government to see the progress being made on site for this exciting new learning campus. It’s a real demonstration of the partnership ethos of the hub model that despite the constraints on major construction projects due to Covid-19, over the past 18 months we have worked together to successfully design, develop and begin building this new facility.
“After delivering the award-winning Wallyford Primary School, we are proud to be entrusted to make the exciting plans for a secondary campus a reality. As well as providing a state of the art educational setting for staff and pupils, it will be a real collaborative asset for East Lothian, allowing the development of community, further education and business partnerships. With construction now well underway, the project will not only provide a number of jobs and training opportunities, but will deliver real social value and reinvestment in the local area.”
Philip Galbraith, project director for Morrison Construction, commented, “It was fantastic for the team here to receive a visit from the education secretary and the children to see the progress we are making so far, demonstrating just what a significant project this is to the local area. As a business, we have delivered a number of high-quality education projects across the region in partnership with East Lothian Council and hub South East, and we look forward to maintaining that proud record here at Wallyford.”
