Are Culloden Academy’s ‘demountable classrooms’ here to stay? The school falls far below the occupancy rate for any serious work to be done on the building
A question to the leader of Highland Council has raised the possibility that Culloden Academy’s “demountable classrooms” could be a more permanent fixture than previously thought.
The question from the leader of the opposition Alasdair Christie to Raymond Bremner asked the latter to name the all schools with demountables that have reached the “optimum occupancy level” of 90 per cent.
That seems innocuous enough and the answer from Cllr Bremner confirmed that there is only one – Craighill Primary School in Tain which will eventually be subsumed in the Tain 3-18 campus that is under construction.
Cllr Christie said: “This level [90 per cent] is used as a benchmark to assess the sufficiency of the estate in general, and to support the consideration of future options around individual schools or groups of schools”.
That information is found in the learning estate strategy approved at the last education committee which oversees some parts of the applications for new schools – this new guidance could erect a road block on any future development.
In May of 2021, we revealed that a desperately needed extension to what was then the Highland most overcrowded school would be years later and millions of pounds over budget.
Then in January of 2022 a whole new vision for Culloden Academy was unveiled and then the year after amid a massive series of U-turns plans for 10 school projects, including Culloden Academy, were ditched.
The demountables were eventually installed and the pressure on the school roll declined.
