Work to demolish a former school in the heart of an Aberdeenshire town is gathering pace.
The old Ellon Academy is being knocked down, with work to remove the main part of the Schoolhill Road building – which also included the community centre and swimming pool – well under way.
The sports hall has been partially demolished, while the huts at the back of the more modern building has already been taken down. Sections of the third floor science blocks have also been caved in.
The annex, across the road, is next in line to be levelled.
The buildings were replaced by a £36million community campus at Cromleybank last summer.
Former head of art Bill Smith – who was based at the school for 36 years – said he would not miss the old buildings.
Now a polar tour guide in the Arctic and Antarctic, he said: “I have absolutely no emotion whatsoever about the building coming down. I have no nostalgia about the building.
“If I have nostalgia, it is for the people that were in it. It is about the staff and pupils. Ellon Academy wasn’t the building, it was the people in it. It was the education that was delivered in it.”
Ellon councillor, Rob Merson, said: “It certainly has been a feature for a long, long time. I am sure there are a lot of Ellon residents and former pupils who will have fond memories of it.
“However it has been replaced by a state-of-the-art facility that I think most people will accept is a vast improvement in terms of a learning environment.”
He added there is an opportunity for a “mixed development” following the demolition.
Fellow local councillors Isobel Davidson and Gillian Owen, are both keen for a replacement health facility for Ellon at the spot.
Mrs Davidson said: “It is the end of an era. I was keen to see the site cleared. It was getting to the stage where it was dangerous. We need to get to the bottom of what we are going to do next.
“I am determined that there is going to be a replacement health centre. I think they are making headway on that.”
Mrs Owen – whose husband Steve went to the original Ellon Academy – said: “It has been part of the community and part of life here for a long time, people celebrated all sorts of achievements throughout there lives there.
“I asked at area committee that (demolition of) Ellon is given priority because there was all these problems with kids going up there and doing damage.”
