COUNCILLORS in Rosyth say demographics and cost dictate that the new Inverkeithing High should return to its original home in Rosyth.

The call from Tony Orton and Andrew Verrecchia came after their colleagues representing Inverkeithing forced Fife Council to reconsider the current site as a possible location for the new high school.

At the end of October, the council’s education and children’s services committee had agreed that the preferred options for the replacement school should be either north of the A921 or the Fleet Grounds in Rosyth.

However, this was called in to the education and children’s services, health and social care scrutiny committee.

Members backed the original decision at their meeting last Thursday, however, added a recommendation that, in light of "additional information" provided since the report went to committee, they should consider reviewing both options and the current school site.

Following the latest development, Cllr Orton outlined the case for a move away from Inverkeithing.

“Rosyth, not Inverkeithing, was the home of the original high school for the Rosyth and Inverkeithing area,” he said.

“Kings Road School in Rosyth served as the high school for the area for 55 years until 1972 when the growth of Dalgety Bay prompted a new high school to be built in Inverkeithing.

“Now, as Inverkeithing High School is reaching the end of its useful life, it’s time to consider bringing the high school back home to Rosyth.

“Inverkeithing has had it for 47 years but demographics have changed again. Half the pupils in the catchment area now live on the Rosyth side of the M90.

“The expansion of Dunfermline has already caused the catchment areas for all the high schools to be rejigged, and the city’s projected growth is a strong argument for relocating the high school to Rosyth.”

Cllr Orton said that according to the council’s options appraisal for a site for the new high school, the school’s present site is £15 million more expensive than the lowest-cost option at Rosyth Fleet Grounds.

“It is also a win-win site, as a new high school would complement the planned new sports facilities at Fleet Grounds to create, in the words of South West Fife Community Sports Partnership, ‘a really wonderful community complex’,” he added.

“The education committee was right to exclude Inverkeithing High School from its shortlist of sites, and it should not give into the understandable popular pressure from Inverkeithing to keep its school where it is.

“Times change and, just as good sense dictated in 1967 that the high school should move to Inverkeithing, in 2019 the rational, cost-effective course is for it to relocate to Rosyth.

“Not everyone in Rosyth has been aware of the high school’s possible return, and I hope the community will now take a leaf out of Inverkeithing’s book and campaign to turn Rosyth High School into reality.”