Parents have been left “anxious and concerned” after gas and power problems emerged at a new £34million secondary school in the Highlands.
The local authority revealed last night that a “contingency plan” had been launched because a series of issues had been found at Inverness Royal Academy – just a month after it opened.
The admission is a fresh blow to local education chiefs – emerging a few weeks after it was announced that the new £48.5million Wick Campus would not be ready on schedule next month.
The problems at Inverness Royal Academy have affected the school’s gas installations, while power outages have also been reported, as well as issues relating to the computers and the management of pupil flow during lunch breaks.
Gas safety inspectors were called into the school on Tuesday – resulting in the gas being turned off to classrooms where home economics, science, and craft, design and technology are taught.
Both the Wick Campus and Inverness Royal Academy projects have been managed by Hub North Scotland Limited and Morrison Construction.
Council chiefs had already launched a probe into problems with the two school building projects last month.
The handover of the new Inverness Royal Academy was delayed by several weeks over the summer, while parents in Caithness have been left furious at delays to the new Wick High School – which was initially earmarked for completion in 2014.
They are expected to confront council bosses at a stakeholders meeting on Monday night in Wick.
Inverness councillor Alasdair Christie, a former education committee chairman, said: “I think the authority need to deal with it together with the contractors so the school is in 100% readiness.
“Parents are delighted with the new building and new facilities compared to the old school, however they are anxious and concerned that there remain some issues outstanding.
“I think it needs to be sorted out. Some of it relates to the fact it has only been open for a few weeks, however some of the problems are more fundamental.”
The new school at Culduthel Road is designed to be able to cater for 1,420 pupils, with 39 practical, 40 non-practical and five tutorial classrooms, and an additional six rooms being provided in order to accommodate a range of subjects to be taught in Gaelic.
Inverness South councillor Ken Gowans said: “There will always be a few teething problems with major projects on this scale and we should expect that.
“Hopefully these issues can be resolved as quickly as possible with as little disruption for the pupils as possible, while also ensuring their safety.
“But this does again raise serious questions about our inspection process. There have been other recent deficits in our building work at schools which should be caught at the inspection stage.”
Highland Council chiefs wrote to parents yesterday to inform them about the problems.
A spokeswoman said: “The council is awaiting a detailed action plan from the contractor, setting out a programme of works and timescales for resolving the issues identified with the gas installation to the affected rooms.
“Meantime, the contractor is implementing a contingency plan to minimise the impact on the parts of the building that are reliant upon gas for delivery of the curriculum.”
She added: “There have, and will continue to be short-term implications within those classrooms, until these contingency plans are fully in place.
“Staff within the affected departments are looking at ways to manage delivery of the curriculum to minimise any implications for learning and teaching.
“Within the building, there have also been intermittent issues with power outages, and some aspects of the ICT installations within the school are still to be completed, or there are issues of reliability.
“These matters have been escalated with the relevant contractors, and steps are being taken to address any issues identified.”
