New Portobello High School - PPAG win legal appeal

[Porty]

Well said Tufty, we are blessed with a good school. Keep the faith for the new one on the park, we will get there.

[little miss moffat]

I am new to the forum. I am not a member of any of the groups – just an individual with an interest in what happens to Portobello Park and PHS. I have only posted a few times on the various sites re PHS – and usually it’s to correct people who are being economical with the truth (to suit their personal views)! On one occasion I had to post the link to the deeds of Portobello Park to prove the park was purchased and not gifted (as had been claimed). On another occasion I had to point out the exact number of houses on a particular street that overlooked the park (as opposed to the claim of 50 houses). I do not have school aged children – so there is no personal gain with regards to the school on the park. I do however feel that a school on the park would be more beneficial to the local community. I would rather see 1400+ children (and those that will follow), plus the local community (with access to the sports pitches and swimming pool out-with school hours) use the park daily as opposed to the dog’s toilet that it currently is. I attended the meeting on Friday night and no one at our table could come up with a suitable plan b – we were all in agreement there was no suitable plan b from what was on offer.
I too went to PHS and contrary to some posts mentioning the use of 4 lifts: when I attended PHS, pupils were not allowed to use the lifts (unless there was a specific medical reason/disability). We were to always use the stairs which meant we were being crushed every 40 minutes while changing classes. My friend’s daughter, who has just left PHS after completing 6th year, confirms that is still the case! She has also said that on very windy days they were not allowed to venture up to the higher levels of the tower block. The kids from PHS have been sent home today due to high winds/structural damage (therefore affecting their education - and it’s not even winter yet). This is not the first time (by a long shot) that I have heard of this. This surely raises the question: how can a refurbished tower block be an acceptable solution in this day and age when high winds can affect the children’s education/attendance at school?
Last, but not least: Hi everyone, sorry my first post was so long
Edited: decided to cut this down to what I considered relevant.

[Snow White]

Well said Miss Moffat. Don't let the big spiders frighten you away any more!

[tufty]

Thanks for posting little miss moffat. I've stopped reading posts that I know are just bile or nonsense. You'd think that folk would want to progress a new school for the future of portobello not securing turf for turds as PPAG have done.

[Makaveli]

Great first post Miss Moffat!!!

[Sceptic]

Well done, Miss Moffat, just tough it out!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sceptic]

Given yesterday's rain plus today's and, remembering the way the park flooded to the extent where you could not differentiate betweeen Figgate Burn, the pond and dry land, it was just one huge pond, do you REALLY want to build a school there?

[seashell]

Great post, Miss Moffat.
Totally agree with you.
Porty needs the best possible school for its children - not just 'making do'.
We can't play with their futures indefinitely.
They deserve a school fit for purpose.

[Pal of Porty]

Wee bit out of catchment but great transport links:

[little miss moffat]

Came across this:

36. Read the following Report by the Lord Provost's Committee:-

Edinburgh, 20th July 1898. - At a meeting of the Sub-Committee of the Lord Provost's Committee, on motion by Judge Grieve, on the subject of the acquisition of a Public Park for Portobello. - Present : - Judge Grieve, Treasurer McCrae, Judges Dunlop, Gulland and Gray, Councillors Telfer, Cranston, Nichol and Forbes Mackay.

The Sub-Committee have carefully considered the provision of a Public Park at Portobello. They have through the Town Clerk been in communication with the Agents of several proprietors of lands in the District. They have carefully considered the offers made and they are of opinion that a field extending to 56 acres or thereby on the estate of Sir James Miller of Manderston and situated to the south of the Railway Station would be a most suitable one for a Public Park. It can be acquired at the price of £25,000, and the Sub-Committee recommend that the Town Clerk should be authorised to accept the offer and to adjust the conditions of sale."

(Signed) 'DAVID GRIEVE, C.'

Does anyone know if the "conditions of sale" were adjusted? If so, can you direct me to the paperwork please.

[Porty]

I would like to welcome you LMM and to thank you for your contributions thus far. It is very brave to step in the way you have. I also agree with most of what you said but there's two sides to a story and believe me I am no angel.

Let's get on with the job of getting the school on the park.

Personally, I am trying to improve on my susceptibility arguing against distractions. I hope you stick around and are the catalyst for a general improvemnet in the quality of the debat.

[little miss moffat]

Thank you Porty (and all others). I was wondering who LMM was, thought maybe I had missed a new post, then it dawned on me it was my name abbreviated lol. I am fine with LMM. I personally want to look into how the park was acquired. I understand it was purchased (according to Andy Wightman): No common good funds were used to acquire the park. Instead, the £25,000 for the purchase of the park came out of the Capital Expenditure account of the Police Accounts of the City 1898-99. I need to try and find out if the restrictions of sale were adjusted.

[Pal of Porty]

.....Much the same when she challenged you to cite the source of your claim about expert reports on the state of the tower.

Just to help out - here is an extract from Council Minutes regarding the Wave 3 schools. This statement relates to assessing the condition of each school:

"Thomas and Adamson, a firm of construction and property consultants, were instructed to carry out an independent verification and validation exercise of the Council reports which had been prepared for the schools. Their assessment was based on the guidelines set out in the Scottish Executive ‘Core Facts -Building Our Future: Scotland’s School Estate’ published in 2003, and the subsequent publications from The Scottish Government issued in March 2007"

As we all know, Portobello came out top (i.e. Worst condition).

[rathbone]

I need to try and find out if the restrictions of sale were adjusted.

If you go to page 4 of this thread, a pdf of the original deed of sale is posted there. (there is also a transcript which I made of it if you find the original difficult to read)

As the deed is dated 16 November 1898 and the Lord Provost's Committee minutes are 20 July, I would assume that the deed incorporates any adjustments to the restrictions of sale.

The principal restriction is that it prohibits any building on the site.

[seashell]

LMM - re the adjustment of the conditions of sale - the recorded deed will supercede any previous agreements contained in missives or any other correspondance. In other words, you don't need to go beyond that deed (except for any other deeds referred to therein for burdens). Hope that makes sense!

[Sceptic]

Schools without dining halls. If you lookk at PPI designs of schools, you will find a combination assembly hall, dining room & social area as an all in1 area. This reduces the size of the school footprint. The area at Gracemount is very effective as it is the at the main entrance with corridors off, stairways / lift to 1st floor and the next set of corridors, leaving a very high spacious area at the "heart" of the school. One presumes Holyrood etc are similar.

[little miss moffat]

Thank you Rathbone and Seashell, guess I should have checked the dates on both sets of paperwork lol. I just saw 20th July and didn't check what year.

[seashell]

Sceptic - I'm not familiar with this type of design, having spent the majority of my own school years in non-purpose built schools and I do wonder what happens during examinations if the one area performs several functions. the advantage of a separate assembly hall is that it can be used without disruption to the candidates and that the other pupils can still move about freely, have their lunches etc. Can anyone explain how say 200 candidates sitting standard grade English (very rough approximation using school roll of 1400 as starting point) could be accomodated while the rest of the school continues to function
This is a genuine question - I'm not criticising such designs, but I am curious as to how they work in practice.

[fresian]

Pal of Porty, what do you mean" a wee bit out of the catchment", this could be the best option yet, the commander was right all along! all we need are sone stepladders for the kids to climb up, or maybe modern building techniques would allow one of these transporter beams that martians have on their ufos. I'm sute there is some kind of module that would make this one work

[Porty]

I think he means its floating in the air!

[seashell]

why was the Big W dismissed?

Err - because it is too small, and situated between 2 main roads and a railway line and the chances of the children using the underpass are about next to zero. And you are going to vastly increase the number of children requiring to cross Milton Road by situating the school there. Plus, there is no space for any sporting facilities

Oh - and it isn't for sale.

In short, the site is as appropriate as Sheriffhall Roundabout. The only thing going for it is that it is actually in the catchment area and Sheriffhall isn't.

But apart from the above, you came up with a splendid idea.

[Sceptic]

Morning Sceptic. Yes it was a bit damp around there yesterday.

I was not referring to yesterday, Commander, I was referring to July. Do you remember the rain then? You could not tell where the burn started, the pond finished or where the land was. It was not the first time it has flooded, I say again, do you really want to build a school there?

[Sceptic]

Can anyone explain how say 200 candidates sitting standard grade English (very rough approximation using school roll of 1400 as starting point) could be accomodated while the rest of the school continues to function

Use the PE halls. Rooms holding 30+ per room, given special needs, you need a lot of rooms to accomodate those needing scribes, word processore etc..

[little miss moffat]

Thank you Epykat.

I think it is important to have people for and against the various ideas. Everyone should be able to post their ideas/views, it's how debates work. It may draw attention to something that has been overlooked. I appreciate some may have covered the various issues many times and become fed up discussing the same thing, but they could just ignore the posts they don't want to respond to. Banter is surely the best option when not agreeing with someone.

In response to Paxetamor, the paperwork (don't know who produced this) at last Fridays meeting said the Big W site was slightly smaller than the existing site so too small, poor location and access, not owned by the Council and would be expensive to acquire. Even if it could be acquired the process would start from scratch, so 4-5 years minimum.

[wangi]

http://www.scotsman.com/news/education/ ... -1-2549503

Law query adds to park strife in bid to get new Portobello High School built

EDUCATION chiefs are going back to the drawing board and reopening the debate over who owns Portobello Park after a land expert raised questions over its common good status.

Andy Wightman, a well-known campaigner for land reform and an expert on common good territory in Scotland, said it had never been firmly established whether the park – on which the council was denied permission to build a new high school – could be classified as common good land and that any judgement on its status would have to be decided by the courts.

If the Court of Session confirms this view, it could remove the central legal hurdle blocking construction of the new school on the park land and render irrelevant the basis of a six-year battle with protesters campaigning against the move. Mr Wightman claimed there was a convincing argument for pursuing the matter in the courts and said “all the problems would disappear, and work could start tomorrow, provided the council has a contract in place [to build] – that’s why it’s so important”.

...

...

[Sceptic]

If found not Common Good Land, PPAG's case has no foundation in Law. Could CEC sue for frivolous litigation without substance and claim for legal costs incured? I ask this, not as a wind up, but I presume that there are some learned in the laws of Scotland who could inform us. PPAG would not be popular if they have held up a tranche of School Rebuilding over nothing.

[wangi]

No. Because honestly the Council would be to blame - they are the ones who in 2006 said it wasn't Common Good and then in 2008 that it was. PPAG agreed with the Common Good status and went to court based on it. It's fair they shouldn't have to pay for the council's cock up.

But it's all if...

[Betty Windsor]

If found not Common Good Land, PPAG's case has no foundation in Law. Could CEC sue for frivolous litigation without substance and claim for legal costs incured? I ask this, not as a wind up, but I presume that there are some learned in the laws of Scotland who could inform us. PPAG would not be popular if they have held up a tranche of School Rebuilding over nothing.

I would have thought that if it turns out not to be CG land then the people of Edinburgh might have quite a lot to say about the behaviour of the council who agreed that it was Common Good land. Would be very interesting to hear how the courts would view that one.
Eh, we've changed our minds m'lud, we don't think it's Common Good after all.
Wonder how many heads would roll under that scenario.

[Epykat]

How has it taken Andy Wightman this long to come up with a query about it - surely he's been following this story for longer than a couple of weeks.

[Porty]

Maybe "No Dining Hall?"

Andy Wightman- Maybe the matter is being examined in more detail in the last two weeks? I really don't know.

[Epykat]

Andy Wightman- Maybe the matter is being examined in more detail in the last two weeks? I really don't know.

I've just read back a bit and apparently Andy Wightman agreed it was CG - handy that he's now saying it might not be. These people really are either very indecisive or their judgements can't be trusted if they can keep jumping back and forwards when it suits them.

Either way, the Council aren't coming out of this smelling of roses. It either is CG, in which case the Court were right to stop them forging ahead with their plans thereby wasting a ton of money, or it's not CG, in which case this could all have been done and dusted years and years ago.

Who is it who is now looking at the documents to make a decision? The same people who looked before or different people. Are they totally independent and unbiased or are they Andy Wightman, the Council or lawyers previously involved in the case?

[rmolehusband]

If found not Common Good Land, PPAG's case has no foundation in Law. Could CEC sue for frivolous litigation without substance and claim for legal costs incured?

No, the council's legal advice was that the CG status didn't matter and so there was no point in going to court over it's status - it was a pragmatic acceptance of a fact because they believed it immaterial. The common good status is very unclear, so if they went to court on that one and lost they would still have had to go to court again on the case of whether or not they could appropriate it.

I would have thought that if it turns out not to be CG land then the people of Edinburgh might have quite a lot to say about the behaviour of the council who agreed that it was Common Good land

Not really, see above.

Let's not forget the who is solely to blame for the fact that construction of our new school is not currently under way - PPAG and their supporters. It is contemptible, though predictable, that they, and you Betty, are now suggesting that it is all the council's fault and that heads should roll.

The council asked the community what they wanted, listed to the majority and tried to deliver it. Their legal advice turned out to be wrong, but that is the nature of the law. If everything was black and white and clear in advance there would be no need for judges.

[David Robertson]

How has it taken Andy Wightman this long to come up with a query about it - surely he's been following this story for longer than a couple of weeks.

I have only been following this story snce 12th September !

Newbie hello everyone -

[Porty]

I've just read back a bit and apparently Andy Wightman agreed it was CG - handy that he's now saying it might not be. These people really are either very indecisive or their judgements can't be trusted if they can keep jumping back and forwards when it suits them.

This is going to sound mental:

Mr Wightman may be one of those people, when presented with new evidence, revaluates and considers the potential impact of that evidence. Having learned more about the issue, his opinion may start to evolve, it could even end up with him changing his mind.

Welcome David.

[Epykat]

Let's not forget the who is solely to blame for the fact that construction of our new school is not currently under way - PPAG and their supporters. It is contemptible, though predictable, that they, and you Betty, are now suggesting that it is all the council's fault and that heads should roll.

And it's statements like that that really get peoples' backs up. If the Council or the lawyers acting on their behalf had really checked things out properly before they started as they should have done, this would never have happened. Parents wouldn't have been promised things that the Council ultimately couldn't deliver.