Parents in Wick fear that their children will never be taught in new a school building, councillors were told yesterday.
The construction of the multimillion pound Wick Community Campus has been hit by another delay, this time by three months.
It means the project will not be handed over to the Highland Council until June 2016.
The project includes a primary school to serve south of the River Wick, merging South Primary School with Pulteneytown Primary and replace Wick High School and provide new community facilities.
The council’s education, children and adult services committee, was told yesterday that part of the issue involved a lack of contractors willing to take on work so far north, because more work waas coming on stream in the south as the recession reced.
Councillor Bill Fernie, Wick, said he had raised the issue with developers, Hub North Scotland, when the project was in the planning stages.
He said that he had been reassured that distance would not be a factor.
But he said yesterday: “The frustration is that parents on the committee think they will see their children go through secondary school and will be long out the door before the new school is completed.”
“We are hearing now that they are coming back with reasons why they are not getting on with it. They say they can’t get bids for packages and that Wick is too far from the central belt.
Mr Fernie added: “Hub need to get a grip on how things are working. It is a shame that Wick was one of the guinea pigs.”
Committee chairman, Councillor Alasdair Christie said that the replacement of a school in his own ward, Inverness Royal Academy, was not as badly delayed.
He said: “I think Inverness Royal Academy has benefited because Wick went first. There were teething issues and learning curves which were identified during Wick campus and did not apply to the academy because it was able to swerve them.”
He added that the Inverness project was also less complex than the Wick one, which includes a swimming pool and library.
Angus Macfarlane, chief executive of Hub North Scotland, said: “The programme for the Wick Campus has been revised to allow the diligence on the procurement of work packages by hub’s cost consultants. This is being done in conjunction with our main contractor and The Highland Council in order to demonstrate value for money and to ensure we are engaged with the local supply chain.
“Hub North Scotland remains fully committed to delivering this very important project with The Highland Council.”