Crossroads Primary may not be a rural school

Sep 26 2008

THE reprieve of Crossroads Primary School may be the most notable local example of a small village school being saved from closure – but it appears that it may not be a rural school after all.

That was the problem facing members of East Ayrshire Council’s cabinet last week as they considered their response to a Scottish government consultation paper on ‘safeguarding our rural schools’.

The suggested response by council officials to the paper would define a rural school as one in a settlement of less than 3000 people more than 30 minutes driving time from an urban settlement – a definition which would rule out every school in East Ayrshire.

“From Crossroads, I could be in Kilmarnock in less than 30 minutes,” pointed out Labour opposition leader Eric Jackson.

Council leader Douglas Reid said: “I‘m struggling with this definition of rural schools.”

And Councillor Jim Buchanan told the meeting: “This would quite clearly take Littlemill and Crossroads out of being rural schools.”

Education official Andrew Sutherland said that the consultation paper itself gave three different definitions of rural schools, based on a driving distances to urban areas. One – accessible rural – was for villages within 30 minutes driving time.

The danger of that definition for the council would be that it could take in schools in villages such as Kilmaurs and Crosshouse, which would not normally be regarded as rural.

Council chief executive Fiona Lees said: “It is quite difficult to actually see East Ayrshire communities fitting into any of these categories.

“What we should do is send people away to think again.”

The cabinet agreed to her suggestion that they should tell the Scottish government that the rural school definition required “urgent consideration”.

The government consultation exercise was actually launched by education secretary Fiona Hyslop at Sorn Primary – one of East Ayrshire’s reprieved ‘rural schools’.