The new Williamwood High School was built to replace a school building which, in addition to being over capacity, was in poor condition. The building was deemed to be unsustainable in terms of the structure and was no longer able to meet the council's duty to support the curriculum and the community. There was concern that Williamwood, as a high achieving school with a strong identity, would lose this in the move to new premises. This is not the case.
Due to the original school location being a constrained urban site, redevelopment in situ, although considered as part of an option appraisal, was not viable, particularly in view of the fact that the new school would be built to accommodate a greater number of pupils. Another issue for the council was the impact of the proposed new site in a semi-rural location on the edge of Clarkston on the Eaglesham Road, around 3 miles from the original suburban site in Williamwood.
This case study is included as an example of the benefits that can be derived from using exemplar designs within a PPP contract in a relocated secondary school. The approach used here has been applied throughout East Renfrewshire and involved specialists in the development of designs that examined key issues before the appointment of the PPP delivery team. This gave the Council the opportunity to set goals and targets and to pre-empt some of the issues that it might face later, particularly the opportunity to extend the building to meet future demographic demands.
Consultation and liaison with the school and the headteacher was considerable and has had a significant impact on the outcome.
The school is well used by the community and is open 7 days a week, daytime and evenings. It hosts specialist sport, music and drama groups in the evenings and at weekends, with access to high quality facilities.