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Petition calls for rethink over Mull school decision

Calum Watson and Andreas Wolff
BBC Scotland News
Getty Images An aerial view of Tobermory, and its brightly coloured houses, and its bay with yachts anchored in it. There are hills on the coast in the background.Getty Images
Tobermory is the main settlement on Mull

A petition has been launched calling on a council to review a controversial decision on where to build new school on Mull.

Argyll and Bute Council decided earlier this month to build a new £43m campus close to the current high school in Tobermory.

Many parents wanted a more central location so that pupils in the south of the island would no longer have to travel by ferry to Oban for schooling and stay in hostels during the week.

The online petition, which has received nearly 700 signatures, suggests the decision ignores children's rights to a family life. The council has been approached for comment.

The location of the island's only high school has long been a source of division on Mull.

Pupils living in the north go to the school in Tobermory, but the commute is more than 90 minutes for those living in the south, and most travel to Oban on the mainland, staying in hostels during the week.

Campaigners had argued for a new secondary school to be built in a more central location such as Craignure, while keeping a primary school in Tobermory.

But the council said splitting the campus would cost the authority an extra £12m, and that any further delay could jeopardise promised Scottish government funding.

Rob Claxton-Ingham, who started the petition believes some of the information presented to councillors who took the decision was misleading.

He said: "There would be shared costs - the development could share the costs of developing infrastructure rather than charging Argyll and Bute."

A dark haired woman with a padded jacket standing in front of a caravan with campiing pods in the background
Chermaine Laurie is among parents on the island who fear they may have to move to avoid being separated from their children

Parent Chermaine Laurie who owns a campsite says the school situation could lead to further depopulation for Ross of Mull peninsula in the south west of the island.

"Every family in this village has discussed leaving with their children to avoid this decision."

Some Mull residents feel the community could have stepped up to find ways to pay for the additional cost that a split site would have incurred.

"It's a chance for the whole island to come together as a community."

Argyll and Bute Council has said the existing high school in Tobemory is in poor condition and it is increasingly expensive to keep it wind and watertight.

The Mull campus project has been allocated funding from the Scottish government's Learning Estate Investment Programme, and the council is keen to make firm plans before building costs rise further.