PARENTS at St Joseph’s Primary in Helensburgh will have the opportunity to comment on the new £21 million Our Lady and St Patrick’s (OLSP) High.

The Dumbarton school will be built on either Posties Park, public recreation grounds next to the River Leven or the current school site which is in the Castlehill area of the town. The controversial decision was taken at a meeting of West Dunbartonshire Council’s (WDC) Educational Services Committee at a meeting earlier this month.

Councillors agreed to add the current site to the consultation process, at a cost of £175,000, following protests and a lengthy debate in the chamber. In May, plans for a new OLSP, were approved by the council, with Posties Park being announced as the preferred site.

In the months since, a Save Posties Park campaign was launched, and members of the group attended the meeting and addressed the council.

Rose Harvie, from the campaign, spoke at the meeting and said any plans to build on Posties Park were against the town’s Local Plan.

Ms Harvie also claimed the council did not have the “moral right” to ignore the Plan and build a school on Posties Park.

Terry Lanagan, executive director of Education, then responded to the public concerns and said while the council was not afraid to take on a challenging solution, building the school on the current site would cause too many problems.

He said: “First and foremost this is an educational argument, I believe it would be of significant educational detriment to the pupils of this school if we build the new school on the current site.

“We are not afraid to go for a difficult solution but we cannot extend OLSP in either direction. The educational argument against this choice is overwhelming.” If the new school was built on the current site, the school assembly hall, dining room, kitchen and music department would have to be demolished during the school year. Mr Lanagan continued: “Local plans are very important but they are not documents that are set in stone. When we made the plan we didn’t know there was a possibility of building a new school with this government funding.

The National Trust for Scotland is now in discussions with WDC over the possibility of extending a new school on the current site on to the adjoining Cunninghame-Graham Memorial Park.

This would mean there would be enough space for two or more outdoor pitches — there is only room for one on the current school site.

The consultation process began on Thursday (September 19), and the proposal document which clearly outlines the council’s plans is available from WDC’s website and also from St Joseph’s.

A public meeting is also being held in the current school on the evening of Wednesday, October 23 where members of the Education Services Committee will present details of their proposals and answer any questions people might have.