School building projects approved

Education Minister John O’Dowd has approved 22 new school building projects but the Chair of the Assembly’s Education Committee, Mervyn Storey, has questioned the speed of the process. Only one of 18 projects announced last June has reached the construction stage.

“The projects are aimed at either addressing serious or sub-standard accommodation inadequacies, or at effecting agreed rationalisation of the schools estate,” John O’Dowd said.

Fourteen of the new projects are in primary schools and eight are in post-primary schools, with the locations determined by area-based planning. Construction depends on planning approval and on the level of capital funding available at the time; the department has allocated £220 million for the schemes. The Minister also announced a £40 million programme for refurbishments and extensions over the next two years.

However, Mervyn Storey pointed to slow progress on last year’s announcement and described the Department of Education’s approval process as “cumbersome and bureaucratic.”

Storey added: “What the Minister has announced today is the potential of new capital projects but questions still remain over what timeframe they will be delivered.” He also questioned the link between area planning and capital funding: “Using a financial hammer to crack a policy nut is not a good way for any Minister to proceed.”

In 2010, the Northern Ireland Audit Office estimated that the schools estate had a £292 million maintenance backlog.