analysis


out of hours and increasingly during school hours; and by acting as a roof over an increasing range of services – a journey which started for us at the Lasswade Centre (see box) , one of our early pilots for the programme, which brought seven services into one building and now extends to buildings like the Waid in Fife. “The power of this is so much more than


saving space and releasing land – though that can have significant value. It is in


using investment in a building to drive the transformation of services for a community; in linking to industry, something which our universities are increasingly active in, and at the heart of some ambitions projects in both Glasgow and Edinburgh supported through City Deal funding amongst many other sources. There must however be more of a role for these links in colleges and schools.” Reekie’s philosophy is that buildings


Exemplar school


SFT’s Schools Pilot project brought together two councils from opposite sides of the country to build state-of- the-art schools for the benefit of their communities (Eastwood High School in East Renfrewshire and the Lasswade Centre in Midlothian), using a similar design.


Initiated between 2011-13, it was the first time two Scottish councils had come together and proved so successful that the collaborative approach has been used by other councils to achieve benefits and savings across the programme.


The Lasswade Centre has stood out for the numerous community benefits being delivered as it has a 1,500-pupils secondary school, a community library, a town hall, a 25m leisure pool, a specialist gymnastics centre, varied sports facilities, a crèche, a community cinema and café all under one roof and open to the public.


now must “work across the ages - from 3-18 campuses through bringing college and school facilities together to truly intergenerational learning places which will support the ever-increasing need for re-skilling thorough life, and keeping mentally active into older age.” In fact, says Reekie, “We have to think


about whether we are really building schools at all. Schools won’t be the same everywhere and will respond to what different communities need. If we are simply replacing an old building with a new one which is designed to modern standards but to meet fundamentally the same purpose as the old building, we are probably getting it wrong. These new buildings must be fit for the future and ok for now, not just a lot better than the old one.” Though the current schools building


programme is seen as successful, there’s one aspect which hasn’t gone to plan, admits Reekie: “Energy efficiency is an area where we have not had as much success as we would have liked. There are some new school buildings using more energy than the buildings they replaced. Some of that is because the building is used more intensively and for more things - which is to be celebrated - and some of it is because the building contains more digital kit - which is progress. But I have a nagging concern that the fundamental


Boroughmuir High School, Edinburgh


energy performance of these buildings and the behaviours of their users and operators, and the interaction of all of those things with the comfort and wellness promoted by the internal environment, needs more work.” Two other issues rank high in Reekie’s


priorities for schools’ construction – quality and cost. On quality, Reekie says “there is a need


for a transformation in the way buildings are bought and produced to improve the quality of the product, the productivity of the industry and the fairness of the work of the many thousands of people involved in the construction supply chains.” And with regard to cost, he explains:


“I’m not about to announce a change in the metrics to go with John Swinney’s £1bn but I can say that discussions I am part of are now a lot more around the need to procure for industry as well as from industry, to produce a high-quality and sustainable product which works for sustainable communities.”


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