West Edinburgh housebuilding is creating a new city at Gogar but where are the schools? – John McLellan

Hot on the heels of the go-ahead for the Redheughs Village at Gogar comes news of another development nearby, for 1,000 flats on the site of the Saica packaging factory next to the Edinburgh Gateway railway-tram interchange.

The Scottish Government has given final approval for a new £500 million housing development to the west of Edinburgh

Redheughs promises 1,350 new homes, and the Lloyds Bank’s investment at West Craigs over the A8 will produce a further 1,700 homes.

With the Cammo Meadows estate of 655 homes now under construction, by 2030 the Gogar roundabout could be at the centre of a new district of nearly 5,000 new homes.

Throw in the 1700 flats planned for the Parabola site at Edinburgh Park for which the groundwork is being carried out, and the proposal to develop most of the International Business Gateway site along the A8 to the airport for housing, this “Gogar City” could be home to around 40,000 people.

A new Maybury primary school is set to open in August 2023, but a council report in December showed that officials have only vague notions about how to cope with what looks like a conservative estimate of 1,600 new secondary pupils, when both Craigmount and Queensferry High schools will be full in four years’ time.

A report is expected in May, but they better get a move on if a new high school is to be built before hundreds of families arrive without anywhere for their kids to be educated.

And don’t be surprised if it ends up in court with developers squabbling about who pays for it all.

John McLellan is a Conservative councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston

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