Tobermory High School is dilapidated and badly in need of renewal. At long last, Argyll and Bute Council are moving ahead with plans to replace it with a purpose-built new school. 

Mull is large island with a dispersed population. Because the island's only high school is located in Tobermory at the extreme north of the island, the four-hour round trip bus journey makes the high school inaccessible to children in the south-west of the island. Children from the south-west have no option but to board in a council-run hostel on the mainland to attend Oban High School, returning home only at the weekends.

The replacement of Tobermory's high school provides an opportunity to end this enforced separation of children from their families. There would be no need for such a divisive and archaic practice if Mull's high school was centrally located and accessible to all. 

However, the Council put a bizarre and impossible condition on a central high School  -  it would only be built if Tobemory's primary school moved along with it. 

The 'central 2-18 Mull Campus' the Council proposed would take children from age 2 through to 18 on one site, drawing high school age children from across the island, but primary age children from Tobermory. The Council insist that economics mean the only way to deliver a central high school would be to close Tobermory's Primary and Early-learning departments and co-locate them with the high school up to 21 miles away in (or near) Craignure. 

Whilst it would fix one problem - 11-18 year-olds from the south of the island would have access to school without leaving home - it would create a whole new one, by insisting that the youngest children from Tobermory were bussed distances that are intolerable at their age. Tobermory's ELC and primary age children would find their school even further away than neighbouring villages, each with their own primary school.

Coupled with 'consultation' that was not fit for purpose and procedure that was flawed in multiple ways, it is clear to us now that what the Council lauded as a 'Mull campus for the whole island' was never intended to be any such thing.

Built in Tobermory, the proposed single-site 2-18 campus would perpetuate inequality of access to education and the slow decline and de-population of the south of the island. Built in Craignure or Garmony, it would preposterously require children as young as two to commute more than 40 miles every day.

Council officials compounded this punitive and illogical pair of choices by unfairly assessing the potential building sites offered to them. They took no account of a FREE site in Craignure that a local family offered to gift to the Council.

The site offered in Craignure was judged the best available, in terms of space, cost and ease of development. It is broadly level, spacious and a short walk from the main ferry terminal, the island's hospital and the public swimming pool. There is the opportunity to share site preparation costs with a large neighbouring housing development. The site is the largest on offer, at more than 57% bigger than the chosen Tobermory location. The site in nearby Garmony also offered many of the same benefits, as well as shard use of existing rugby club pitches. 

As well as being cramped, the Tobermory site is more expensive to develop, requiring a taller building and multiple level-changes. It does not offer the recommended minimum area per pupil, and is below the minimum site size that the Council themselves published. It is so lacking in space that its sports pitch will have to be built on a seperate site and there is nowhere for busses to turn. 

Officials have skewed the process in such a way as to deliver a pre-determined outcome - a sub-standard 2-18 campus in Tobermory that perpetuates the division of our community and denies a family life to any child unfortunate enough to live in the south-west of the island. With either of the central 2-18 campus sites that officials presented to them being plainly bizarre and punitive, Councillors chose the least-worst option - build a cramped 2-18 campus in Tobermory and abandon any prospect of an all-island central high school.

What we are asking for is simple and logical - a SPLIT SITE, where primary and ELC education is retained in Tobermory whilst a new high school is built centrally, accessible to all. This is also the clear preference of the Mull Community. 

In an exhaustive survey undertaken by the Mull Campus Working Group, some form of split site school was the preference of 63% of respondents. Support for a split-site solution that delivers equal access to education comes from all parts of the island. 

Council officials have maintained that a split site is unaffordable, yet there has never been a thorough strategic assessment of education provision on Mull to find how to affordably deliver education for all. Coupled with that, the Scottish Government (50% funders of the project) were never asked to fund a split-site project because there was no consultation with the community prior to preparing the bid.

With a formal decision now made by Argyll and Bute Council to proceed with a 'Mull campus' in Tobermory, our only option is to take this perverse and damaging decision to Judicial Review. This is going to be expensive and time consuming, but a win would force the council to re-visit their decision. 

We have now engaged a legal team to take our case to the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Advocating for us will be James Mure KC, one of Scotland's most respected and successful laywers specialising in judicial review and public law. 

We need your help to pay for this! Please give whatever you can. Every donation no matter how large or small counts. not just to meet our funding target, but to demonstrate support from the community we represent, as well as anyone who wants to see a bright and fairer future for all children in Mull.

Knowing that Judicial Review will inevitably delay the delivery of a new school for Mull (whatever the outcome), we are grateful to Cabinet Secretary for Education Jenny Gilruth for her written assurance that delay caused by this judicial review will not jeopardise the essential funding for the project that is coming from Scottish Government.

The Mull Campus Working Group is a broad-based community organisation with members from across Mull.
Mull Campus Working Group Ltd  is a company limited by guarantee, set up to pursue legal proceedings. Your donations will go directly to our legal team at Balfour Manson, but only when our £50,000 target is reached. If we don't hit £50,000, we won't have enough money to proceed.

If we reach our £50,000 target, donations are non-refundable. However, if at the end of the process we have any funds left over (either because we win the case or raise more money than we need), we will use surplus funds to either a) pursue any additional related legal action, or b) donate to Mull and Iona Community Trust, for ring-fenced use in education projects.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP! 

READ THE FULL SERIES OF HERALD ARTICLES ON THE MULL CAMPUS HERE

WATCH THE DEBATE IN THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT FEATURING THE MULL CAMPUS HERE

WATCH THE SPECIAL MEETING OF ARGYLL & BUTE COUNCIL OF MARCH 7TH, WHERE THE DECISION TO PROCEED WITH THE TOBERMORY SITE WAS TAKEN. DEPUTATIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE MULL CAMPUS WORKING GROUP APPEAR AT THE START. 

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