South Wales Evening Post - 22 February 2007
Swansea Council has been told to double the money it plans to invest in rebuilding a fire-hit city school.
Governors of Penyrheol Comprehensive School are calling for the authority to dig deep and review all options in a bid to find upwards of £15 million for the replacement school.
The council is expecting around £8 million from insurers to go towards the new building, but argue that with more than 100 schools needing investment across the county, it simply can't plough more than that into the school.
But Philip Sillick, vice-chairman of governors at the school, believes Swansea Council should do all it can to deliver what school pupils and parents want.
He said: "There is no way we will have a proper school for £8 million.
"The schools we have been looking at are upwards of £15 million."We are still battling with the local authority on that.
"We need 48 classrooms, and the figure is based on that. It is more than realistic.
"We have got to look at it being here in 20 years time. We don't want to put up something temporary."
Mr Sillick said that between 1,500 and 2,000 new homes had been pencilled in for the Gorseinon area, and that the school needed to be able to accommodate future pupils, as well as its current roll of 960.
He said: "We want them to come to Penyrheol.
"Every school gets its capital allowance by the amount of pupils that we have.
"If we lose pupils, we are not gong to get our money.
"That is why we must have adequate accommodation in the school.
"We don't want to have a building where we have to build on bits and pieces later, because later never comes."
Mr Sillick said he hoped the new school would be available by the end of 2008, the early part of Swansea Council's predicted date of the 2008/09 academic year.
He added it was important parents knew when it would be available, and what standard it would be so that they could make informed choices on their children's education.
A spokesman for Swansea Council said: "By definition, the insurance claim will be sufficient to fund a capital scheme to replace what the fire destroyed.
"It is not currently the intention to invest in improvements to the undamaged areas of the school or to replace with something substantially larger than existed before, although the new block will be modern and must comply with latest building regulations and Disability Discrimination Act requirements.
"This must be viewed in the context that the education department supports more than 100 schools across Swansea, some of which have pressing needs for investment, and at this point, extra funding has not been allocated for Penyrheol on top of the insurance settlement.
"Losing such a large part of the school to an arson attack was tragic, and the council has endeavoured to support the school at every step of the way, from ensuring that education continues for all pupils, to the reinstatement, as early as practicable, of the building damaged by fire."
