THREE new high schools should be built in West Fife, according to the SNP’s Douglas Chapman.

The Rosyth councillor, and the party’s candidate for the Dunfermline and West Fife seat, says plans must be made now to replace Inverkeithing, Woodmill and St Columba’s high schools. Cllr Chapman made the call after Fife Council’s capital plan was agreed, which will see £100 million spent on schools elsewhere in Fife.

He said, “Fife Council has the opportunity to start looking at a new group of schools to be replaced and given that most of the current investment is going into Kirkcaldy and East Fife, it’s now the right time to start planning for three new high schools in the Dunfermline area.

“We built the new Dunfermline High and the school has made huge strides in providing the very best education with new enhanced facilities for learning, sport and vocational education.

“We now need to employ the same design and build factors to create new inspirational learning and community campuses at Inverkeithing, Woodmill and St Columba’s.” Cllr Chapman said both St Columba’s and Inverkeithing were rated ‘category C’ – the poorest measure in terms of their condition – and Woodmill was ‘category B’, although that rating is only because of the new Learning Support wing, with the rest of the buildings category C.

He added, “The reason for urgency is becoming more than acute at each of the schools as Inverkeithing, for example, is of a design that simply soaks up money to keep the building wind, watertight and in an acceptable state of repair.

“At Woodmill, the expansion in numbers of primary school children in the area will hit the school soon and pupil projections will ‘bulge’ in the early 2020s so planning to cater for these numbers of extra pupils needs to begin now.

“St Columba’s is simply showing its age and a rebuild would help the school develop more exciting learning opportunities, especially for vocational education, for more community involvement and to showcase the best of the talents of their students.” The bulk of the £100m in the capital is for Viewforth, Waid, Madras and the new Levenmouth high school but it also gives a commitment to “ensure investment would be made in Woodmill, St Columba’s RC and Inverkeithing high schools”.

However, Cllr Chapman said, “There may be small-scale improvements being made to these schools but we need to go beyond ‘sticking plaster’ solutions.

“Investment in a complete rebuild for Inverkeithing, Woodmill and St Columba’s is the only real answer and the quicker Labour bites the bullet and gets plans and timescales on the table so that each school is ‘good to go’ when additional funding becomes available.” Councillors agreed a capital plan for the next 10 years and, as well as education, it says there will be £18m spent on replacing care homes, £23m for Fife’s roads, £15m for economic development and infrastructure, £7m to help older people and those with disabilities and £3m for town centres.

Council leader David Ross said it was a ‘spend to save’ plan and explained, “Demand keeps going up and funding keeps going down, so we still need to save £77m by 2018.

“But at the same time we must continue to invest; invest in our infrastructure, invest in our people and invest in our future.

“The investments we have put into the capital plan will help us deliver better and more efficient services, enabling us to reduce the money we spend in the long run.

“By putting this critical investment into our schools, care homes and services we can help prevent problems before they happen.”