Sir,
I know that some politicians can have a tendency to over-
In a leaflet delivered over a week ago by our SNP candidate Alasdair Allan, he claims that the SNP “built seven brand new schools in the islands.” This claim was repeated at the hustings in Stornoway on Friday, 22 April.
Letter: Allan accused of getting his sums wrong over new schools
28 April 2016
In the case of five of the schools, it is true that they were completed since the SNP came into power in 2007, but all the hard work involved in delivering the first five schools in the original Western Isles Schools Project had been done in 2004 and 2005, during which time the Comhairle worked with the Labour/Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive to secure a funding package, specifically tailored to suit the Western Isles.
FACT : the public announcement that the original schools project (4 schools) would
go ahead, was made in June 2004 by Peter Peacock, who was Minister for Education
and Young People from 2003-
FACT : the fifth school, Balivanich, was added to the project in 2005 while Alasdair Morrison was still the MSP, after horrendous storm damage in January 2005. (CnES press release July 2005).
The combined efforts of CnES, the Scottish Executive and Alasdair Morrison led to
the building of 5 schools :-
It is therefore erroneous for Alasdair Allan to claim that the SNP have built seven new schools, when the actual number they can take credit for is only two.
Ada H Campbell
Druim Dubh
Paiblesgarry
Isle of North Uist