New Portobello High School - PPAG Judicial Review

[storky]

[joeshmoe]

[rathbone]

[seanie]

[lg1726]

[gillian]

[Bob Jefferson]

Is your cat looking for an agent?

Vote Rosa's Cat! You know it makes purrfect sense!

[Makaveli]

Bob have there not been enough catty remarks on this issue already???

[wangi]

[Bob Jefferson]

Available from all good stockists:

[BeachBum]

I've been following the community debate with great interest for a long time now, seems like a really really long time.

I agree that the appeal should be dropped. I support a new school being built on the land & hope that work can start as soon as possible.

I do wonder though if campaigners will remove fly stickering once their campaign is over? (I realise its well intentioned)

Stickering of street furniture such as street lighting columns makes the place look like a s##t tip, in my opinion.

droptheappeal.JPG (40.35 KiB) Viewed 7738 times

[wangi]

What you've got there BeachBum is the emotive result of last Thursday's meeting when those stickers were dished out for placing on jackets etc. I never got one. On the way home they ended up on lamp posts etc I guess.

Tell you what - keep a wee list and when this school build breaks ground I'll remove them personally for you.

(as for the other sticker there, it's also pretty cool; see )

[Bob Jefferson]

I've spotted those stickers as well BB. They appear to lead from the Espy. I'll be glad to help wangi remove them when the great day comes.

[BeachBum]

[Lashylass]

Why wait? Just do it now.

[Mark Cameron]

Same could be said for the new school lashy.

[Pal of Porty]

[Mark Cameron]

yeah pop but why did you stick an A3 poster in it's place?

I too will join the 'clear up crew' when the school gets underway.

[gillian]

[Sceptic]

How about starting on Friday, clearing the "Vote for" tags that will be hanging from EVERY lampost from Kings Road to Eastfield. Perhaps this is SOMETHING useful for PCC to arrange for once.

[lg1726]

[seanie]

There's a claim that keeps coming up that the existing site was the Council's 'second choice' back in 2006. This is not true.

The consultation on site options noted that the size of site required under the School Premises Regulations Act (1967) would be 6.7Ha. Given the practical difficulties of finding a site that size they compromised on an optimum of 4.5Ha that would allow for one all-weather pitch, with further off site playing fields required. At 2.9 Ha the existing site was immediately discounted. However, the existing site PLUS the St John's site was taken to the final consultation. At 3.5 Ha this would still have been challenging but maybe just about doable.

That's the reason why, back in 2006, PPAG suggested St John's be re-built on Figgate Park; so the combined sites could be used for PHS. When they got heavily criticised they changed their tune and claimed that they meant the St John's site could be turned into playing fields for St John's, and now they claim they never suggested St John's be built on Figgate at all. However this is yet another lie. Ros Sutherland's letter to the Evening News suggesting just that is still available on t'internet.

The 3 options that went to consultation were therefore; PHS on the golfcourse part of Portobello Park; PHS on the pitch area of Portobello Park; or PHS on the combined sites of St John's and PHS. The existing site was not even an option, let alone 'second choice'.

If anyone tells you it was, they're not telling the truth.

[Pal of Porty]

A key player in PPAG also suggested on Talk Porty that St John's should be built on Portobello Park. This was a last ditch PPAG attempt to keep PHS off the park and compromise with a smaller primary school once they saw it was beginning to look inevitable that PHS would be going there. Yet again we have evidence to back this up as I took a screen capture the second I saw the post as I was so gobsmacked that a group pertaining to have green credentials were trying to build on yet another park!

[seanie]

St John's on the park was the official response from the St John's School Board, with PHS on the combined sites.

It was only when their delegation turned up to the full Council meeting in December '06 that they announced they'd changed their minds and wanted a refurbishment instead.



(date corrected)

[Porty]

[Pal of Porty]

[Pal of Porty]

[Doris]

[Betty Windsor]

[Porty]

should we have a poll to establish what most of us think regarding the nutjob ?

[seashell]

Here's Gillian Dunn's latest on the PPAG facebook site of censorship:
"I think even Sean Watters agrees that the rebuild on the existing site is viable. Just not desirable (in his opinion). Anyone who disagrees with him is an idiot apparently."

I'm going to make a wild guess that Seanie is banned from responding over there.

[seanie]

[Doris]

It begs the question - why did they put in an FOI request for something which was already in the public domain?

[seashell]

to cause extra work and extra expense, as anyone who has ever had to deal with an FOI request knows

[seanie]

Maybe we should FOI what FOI requests PPAG have made?

Is that doable?