Calls for town high school

Loanhead Community Council Chair Pat Kenny.

Speaking at his group’s meeting last week, community council chairman Pat Kenny said his group has been seeking a local secondary school “for the past five or six years”, he added: “It’s obvious that with all these houses currently being built in Loanhead we need our own high school.

“Loanhead kids have been bussed up and down for years and years. It’s high time that the people who make these decisions stop for a minute and think. And we want something done this year to get it started.

“Find the ground, get all these developers and the possible film studio, channel their developer contributions money into a new secondary school to let Loanhead see the benefit and stop bussing our kids to school like cattle.

“If you take the cost of bussing them over the years we could have built a new school.

“The developments happening now a lot of the kids living in them are not of school age yet but they will soon be added.

“We will keep this on our agenda as we continue to look at it, we have been asking for a new secondary school here for five or six years now.”

Councillor Jim Muirhead (Lab), the cabinet member for education, said: “There are ongoing discussions with Edinburgh University on securing a suitable site for a secondary school in the A701 corridor to create a Centre of Excellence in Science there in partnership with the University of Edinburgh. We are in the process of identifying a potential site in the Midlothian West ward which would include Loanhead in its catchment.

“Once a suitable site is identified we will move on to developing a funding proposal. Indeed, a report on our learning estate strategy is coming to the full council at the end of this month.”