Flood closes Milngavie school
FLOODING at the newly built Douglas Academy in Milngavie caused the school's closure last week and cancellation of the advanced higher music practical exam.
The school was one of five re-built in East Dunbartonshire under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) programme with a grant of 100,000 from the Scottish government and opened last August.
A burst pipe resulted in corridors, the dining room, library and social areas being flooded and a large number of ceiling tiles being dislodged.
A spokesman for East Dunbartonshire Council explained: "Douglas Academy was closed on Thursday and Friday May, 20 and 21 due to a flood caused by the separation of joints in one of the water pipes.
"As Douglas Academy is a PPP school, contractors Spier Matthew Hall were fully responsible for the repair and clean up of the school following the incident.
"Arrangements were made to ensure that all pupils were able to sit their Intermediate 1 and Intermediate 2 highers and advanced highers on Friday and the practical music exam will be re-scheduled."
MSP Des McNulty said: "It is deeply worrying that such a serious problem should occur and very unfortunate that it should happen at exam time.
"But I have to commend the prompt action of the staff of the school in dealing with the disruption and keeping pupils and parents informed.
"Hopefully there will be checks to ensure that similar problems do not occur in future either at Douglas or at Bearsden Academy.
"One of the advantages of the PPP funding mechanism is that the responsibility for sorting out the fault that led to the flooding and for the clean-up is with the contractor, not with the council.
"The council's job is to ensure that the contractor acts quickly and effectively to put things right."
Milngavie Councillor Jim Gibbons said: "I was extremely disappointed to find the brand new school closed due to flooding but thankfully there was minimal disruption to those pupils who had exams.
"It made sense to have the school closed on the Friday to make sure the problems were all sorted by the start of the new week. It was important to carry out safety checks and make sure the social areas were useable. I would like to thank everyone who worked hard to make this possible."
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Weather for Milngavie
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: East
