Save Springside Primary from Closure!
Fight for our community
All the latest news and updates. Last updated 20th April.
29th April
IT'S OFFICIAL.....SPRINGSIDE SCHOOL TO STAY OPEN
At a full meeting of North Ayrshire Council today, all 30 councillors unanimously decided to keep Springside School open confirming that it was a vital part of our community, and that the village would see a negative impact if it was to be closed. This is fantastic news!!!!!! As you can see we have wasted no time at all in getting our banners modified and put back up. Well done to everyone.
22nd April
The Campaign Committee above celebrate after hearing the good news
Tears of joy from committee members Aileen and Eleanor below
These photos are copyright and courtesy of Steve McKendrick
The Education Executive of North Ayrshire Council met yesterday afternoon (22nd April)and, following a final presentation by the Springside Primary Parent Council, and representation from Cllrs Ruby Kirkwood, Joan Sturgeon & John Moffat on our behalf, a review of the arguments we had put forward then took place. As a result, the Education Executive unanimously agreed that we had managed to convince them that our school was vital to our community and should be saved.
We were told that the campaign we had put on, the arguments that we had put across, the way our community had pulled together to save the school, and the fact that we had always been pleasant, courteous and polite at all times throughout the consultation, along with the fact that we had clearly investigated all avenues and put forward a very clear and structured argument, all of which had been backed up by factual information, all led to us changing the Executives mind and they agreed that our school should remain open.
The report that had come out from the Corporate Director of Education, Carol Kirk, recommended that the Education Executive agree to save Springside School. One of the statements that was used in that report is as follows.......
"The arguments for the role of Springside Primary School in a small clearly identifiable community and the regeneration programme for large areas of Springside were well made. These arguments strongly favoured option 1, and it is therefore recommended that the retention of both schools be agreed".
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE
17th April
Carol Kirk issued her report on the consultation that we have gone through and the recommendations that she is making to the Education Executive is to retain Springside Primary School and build a new school for Dreghorn. This is fantastic news but it is still too early to celebrate as the Education Executive need to discuss it and put their findings to the full council for approval. The Education Executive will be meeting at 1pm on the 22nd of April, with the full council meeting taking place on the 29th April at 2pm.
17th March - 12th April
All members of the Save Springside School Action Group actively visited most of the councillors at their individual surgeries and discussed the consultation proposals with them. They were all made aware of our feelings towards the closure and we discussed our concerns and fears of the impact the proposed closure would have on our village. We wanted to make them aware of our concerns so that they were properly informed when it comes time to vote for or against the closure. We also had some extremely positive remarks about our "Big Bruvver" DVD which has been encouraging.
17th March
Dear .......
CONSULTATION DOCUMENT
Thank you for your e-mail in connection with the consultation document on the future of Springside and
I have consulted the Council’s Legal Services on the issue of the approved capital plan for
However, we appreciate your comments in relation to whether parents, of both schools, would be aware of the commitment to
In connection with the other points which you raised can I provide the following comments.
The intention to replace
While I appreciate your comments in relation to the current capital programme, which was made known to
Thank you for your message and I hope that this demonstrates the benefits of our working together on this consultation.
Yours sincerely
Carol Kirk
Corporate Director (Educational Services)
Dear Carol
RE:
Thank you for your letter dated
We appreciate what you have tried to do; however, we do not feel that you have adequately addressed our issues with the Consultation document relating to Option 1.
We are not satisfied with the Council’s attempt to clarify that Dreghorn Primary would receive a replacement school, as your letter has not been received by all of the pupils or parents of the affected schools. This letter did not reach the further communities or interested parties who are also affected by these proposals, therefore we feel that this attempt at “correcting” the paperwork is far too little too late.
You do mention in your letter that there are no implications for option 1, however if we point you to clause 5.1, you will note that the documentation states that there would be continued use of resources on under-occupied and aging buildings. This should not mention “aging” if you planned to build a new one. You will also note that section 5.2 clearly states that options 2, 3 & 4 require a new school to be built, but doesn’t mention it for option 1 when it should.
You have confirmed this is a legal process; however, this legal process has not been followed. The paperwork regarding the proposal is not accurate or precise, nor does it have clear intention. The correct information should have been contained in the first instance and this undermines the whole consultation process.
We asked you at our meeting on 5th March if you would work with us for our future, however we feel that a lot more clarity should have been in the paperwork, and still don’t feel that enough has been done to resolve this matter.
Given the severity of the flaws in the paperwork, we have agreed that the letters you have sent out, do not do enough to address the issues, especially as you say the paperwork forms part of a legal process, therefore please be assured that we will be progressing this further.
Yours sincerely
Save Springside School Action Group.
14th March
This morning the Save Springside School Campaign Group delivered their final submission to North Ayrshire Council. This was presented to Mr Jim Leckie and consisted of 2 lever arch folders crammed full of letters from parents, pupils and concerned parties. We also included our signed petition, DVD with full transcript and all of our arguments clearly documented. Hopefully this will show the council exactly how we feel about the school closure.
Photo copyright Steve McKendrick
11th March
RESPONSE INDIRECTLY RECEIVED FROM CAROL KIRK REGARDING FLAWED PAPERWORK
SOME of the children came home from school today with a letter from Carol Kirk, which has obviously been sent in response to our e-mail yesterday. The wording of the letter is as follows:-
10th March
FLAWED, INACCURATE AND MISLEADING DOCUMENTATION.......HAS IT BEEN INTENTIONAL?
At our meeting with Carol Kirk and Jim Leckie last Wednesday (5th March), a question was put to them by Wendy Ramsay on behalf of the campaign committee. This question was about the consultation paperwork that was issued by NAC on 8th January.
It is very clear that the paperwork is fundamentaly flawed, and it could be seen to be purposely misleading, with an aim of leading the public down the road of voting for a new amalgamated school, which is the councils preferred option of the 4.
The flaws in the paperwork all relate to option 1, where it is clearly stated that option 1 is to "Retain both school buildings". Further into the consultation document, there is reference made that option 1 has no financial implications, and it also states that option 1 would involve directing revenue into underpopulated and AGING buildings.
However, as we now know Dreghorn has to get a new school built for them irrespective of what happens to Springside Primary, this shows that the documentation is flawed, and misleading. The village of Dreghorn have been promised a new school for several years now, however, when these consultation papers were issued, according to these papers, the only way Dreghorn would get a new school was if they voted to amalgamate the two schools together.
This has put a very serious barrier up that Springside has had to try to overcome, but as there are 3 - 4 times as many people in Dreghorn than Springside, we are seriously disadvantaged when it comes to the voting, as Dreghorn will be voting for a new school. Dreghorn have told us that it is not in their interests to back our campaign, because if they helped to save Springside School, they would be left with an old run down school that they don't want.
The question that was asked last Wednesday evening was:-
We understand that there is approved capital for a replacement school for Dreghorn and yet this information is omitted within the options of the consultation put forward.
In our opinion and that of legal advise the consultation document is misleading, incorrect and fundamentally flawed.
I want to ask NAC how will you rectify this situation because clearly the facts contained within option 1 of the consultation are misrepresented.
We were told to put this into writing, and the wording below is a copy of the e-mail that was sent to Carol Kirk this morning looking for an answer...........
Dear Carol
RE:
Firstly may we thank yourself and Jim Leckie for attending the meeting at Springside last Wednesday evening regarding the proposed amalgamation with Dreghorn Primary, and for answering the questions from our community where appropriate. We hope you found the meeting mutually beneficial, however, we must now address the serious issue of the misrepresented consultation document.
As outlined in the meeting last night, the consultation document does not include, nor refer to any capital agreed for a replacement school for Dreghorn Primary. Under section 3, Current position of Dreghorn Primary gives details of the current state of the school and what investment would be required to retain the current building. If the capital is already agreed for a replacement school for Dreghorn, which you confirmed at the meeting, why is this not included in the current position?
The consultation questionnaire is a legal binding document and should contain all of the information for residents, parents and interested parties to make an informed opinion.
Section 4, Options – There are four options available to the Council;
Option 1 – Retain both school buildings – Again there is no reference to the agreed capital for a replacement school for Dreghorn. The assumption that people in both Springside and Dreghorn are aware of this situation is totally unacceptable.
Option 1 should read :
Build new School for Dreghorn and retain
It should also make clear that funds for such have been approved.
You will see that immediately there is a major change to options available and that option 1 would in all probability get the vote of parents from both schools looking after the interests of their children and their communities. To smoke screen this option is asking for votes under false pretences.
To further collaborate that the capital agreed for a replacement school has been ignored or even considered within this document, may we draw your attention to other relevant sections in which this would or should be included.
Section 5 Implications – 5.1 Option 1 has no new implications but continues the use of resources on under-occupied and aging buildings. Should this not make reference to the fact a new building for Dreghorn Primary will have to be built and would require the purchase of land for this purpose? Furthermore it does not include the estimated capital that would be gained for the sale of the surplus grounds of the existing Dreghorn Primary for housing.
Section 5.4 Financial – Option 1 only states the current budgets for each individual school. Should this not also include the capital for a replacement school for Dreghorn? It should further include the capital of the surplus grounds sold for housing on the existing site of Dreghorn Primary, which would have an affect on your net saving.
Projected school rolls have been adjusted for option 2 and 4, by taking into account the increase that would be seen by including the proposed housing development on the site of the existing
These paragraphs outlined above represent the main areas of the consultation, and it would appear that not only did the council produce a document that neglected to inform all interested parties that there was agreed capital to replace Dreghorn Primary, but it would also appear that there has been a direct attempt to sway public interest to the Council’s preferred proposal.
With only a week of the consultation period left, this issue must be addressed and resolved very quickly. Our campaign to save our school has been severely disadvantaged at the exclusion of this vital information. The community of Dreghorn is 3 times the size of Springside and therefore you will have 3 times the amount of people nominating to amalgamate, as this would appear to be the only option available to Dreghorn if they want to receive a replacement school.
We look forward to receiving your comments and given the time constraints would anticipate a response as a matter of urgency.
Yours sincerely
We will update you with a response as and when we receive it.
7th March
"DRIVE SLOW PROCESSION" This was a huge success this afternoon, when we had 74 children walk out of the school effectively on strike, at 1.15pm. The kids all walked out in protest against the 
proposed closure of Springside Primary School. This was a great turnout when you consider we only have 86 pupils in the school!!
WE ALSO HAD A TOTAL OF 80 VEHICLES IN THE PROCESSION.
This event was discussed by the campaign committee back in January, whilst brainstorming ideas for some hard hitting campaigns that would generate media interest. It was decided at that stage that to get the maximum effect from the campaign, we should look to invite Towerlands Primary School and John Galt Primary to join us in the procession of slow vehicles. Chris Archer and the Parent Council at Towerlands primary had already agreed a date of the 7th March as a date they were going to look to pull off a demonstration march, so it made sense to us that if we were going to try to get all schools involved, it be sensible to do it on a day that they had already earmarked for a demonstration.
The e-mail was sent across to Chris inviting them to join us, and then a follow up meeting took place in Springside with representatives from the 3 schools in attendance. We all discussed and agreed the route that we wanted to take, and the timings etc of the event. The licence application was then completed and lodged with North Ayrshire Council for us to get the permission to hold the event.
After some very intense meetings with the Roads Dept and Strathclyde Traffic Police, a few ammendments were made to the proposed route and agreement was finally reached between the Roads Dept, the Police, and the relevant chairpeople of the schools parent councils.
Once agreement was reached the real hardwork really began, as we had to first of all find out how many parents would allow their kids to walk out after lunch. We also had to try to determine how many vehicles we would have, and then allocate every driver an allocation of children that they would be responsible for during the event.
The team really pulled together on this one because of the sheer amount of work that was required. We also had to work closely with the school, cross referencing the permission slips that they had, and the slips that we had, as every single child that was to walk out of school had to have an adult sign them out of school.
We left Springside in an extremely long procession of vehicles to head down to meet up with 
Towerlands and John Galt. This was absolutely amazing as they too had an extremely long procession of vehicles, and when they pulled in behind us the effect was far more impressive, and much longer than we could have possibly imagined. We then met up with our Police escort and headed off into Irvine.
We have to say, the looks on the faces of people who were walking around the town, was incredible, and when we actually drove up the High Street, most of the staff from the shops had all come out to see what the noise was, and they all cheered and waved at us for pulling the whole thing off, and showing a UNITED fight from all 3 schools in protest against the closures.
The overall effect was better than we had hoped for, as we never initially imagined a procession of 80 vehicles, and the effort that people had gone to to decorate their vehicles with banners, balloons and streamers was incredible. That effort that people went to shows the passion that the people of Springside have for our school, especially when we consider they had to go out and decorate the vehicles in high winds and very heavy rain.
Thank you to everyone who worked extremely hard in pulling this event off, as it really was a strategical nightmare. These people include the Campaign Committee, the parents of pupils for allowing their kids out of school, the pupils themseves for the orderly way they conducted themselves, as yet again we had absolutely no trouble, all the people who came along with their cars,
Mrs Martin and the staff at Springside Primary School for being very organised in getting the kids signed out of school, the roads department and Strathclyde Police for agreeing to the event, the police for managing the event, the Irvine Times and the Irvine Herald for continually promoting the event over the last few weeks, West FM for reporting on the event, the photographers who turned out in great numbers to brave the weather to get some photographs of the event, The Irvine Buttery who again braved the weather to stand at the Townhouse with a video camera on a tripod, for us to get the procession recorded on tape, and anyone else we may have unintentionally missed from this list. (photo copyright & courtesy of Steve McKendrick)
6th March
Today we made contact with all the councillors to advise them of the background to them recieving a copy of our "Big Bruvver" DVD during their meeting yesterday afternoon. Most of them have replied back to us advising that they have either watched it, or at least thanked us for it and promised that it would be watched. The ones who have watched it have been very positive about it.
This is extremely important to us as you do not get to see raw emotion when you read someone's comment on a piece of paper, and so hopefully when each councillor watches the DVD, they will get a true feeling of the emotions and the passions of the people in the village.
5th March - evening
Today has been a very busy day for the campaign committee, as, following the stand off outside Cunninghame House, we have just had our consultation meeting with Carol Kirk.
The hall in the school got busier and busier leading up to the 7pm start time, until the room was almost full. Carol Kirk then introduced herself, Jim Leckie and Cllr Bell, who were assisting her to answer questions.
The meeting started with a presentation by Jim Leckie on the background to the reasons we are facing closure. This was then counter-balanced with a presentation from the campaign committee on the reasons why we shouldn't be facing closure. We believe our presentation stimulated a lot of interest and got Carol Kirk and her team to better understand where we were coming from as a community, and what our fears were. Our presentation was very factual and highlighted several areas that we don't think the Education Executive fully understood, and we explained a lot of the implications that the closure would have on our community.
We had some extremely good points raised by members of the public who had come along, and we feel that the meeting was very positive from the start. We managed to keep the meeting under control and gave Carol, Jim and John the chance to answer every point that was raised. This is the only part of the meeting we weren't particularly happy with as the quality of answers that we got (when we did get answers) were very poor and seemed to be "guesswork" rather than factual, confident answers that we had hoped to recieve.
An example of these answers came from Carol Kirk when she was asked what the benefits of a new school would be, and what would our children recieve in a new school that they don't get in Springside Primary. The answer we got, was that a new school would have better lighting and a better atmosphere. As these alleged benefits don't really excite the people of Springside, we feel more determined now that we don't want a new school, as we have excellent lighting and a fantastic atmosphere in our own village school.
One very serious point was raised regarding a fundamental flaw in the consultation paperwork that was distributed by NAC, and some questions were raised on the back of that point, and, as a result, we were advised by Carol to put our thoughts on the flaws in the paperwork into writing, which we will do this week. We will update you on this extremely important point in a seperate update, as we feel it warrants proper, and full explanation, for you to fully understand the point that was raised.
Although we didn't get all the answers that we were looking for, we still feel that the whole tone of the meeting was very positive, and again, we firmly believe that we gave the Education Executive something to seriously consider, and gave them some solid background information on the village of Springside, and the community spirit that we have. Our school plays a very important part in the village and ALL of the campaign committee feel that the people who turned out to attend the meeting got that message across to them.
On behalf of the Campaign Committe & the villagers, we would like to thank Carol, Jim and Cllr Bell for listening to our points of view, and we urge them to please take on board our comments when making a decision on our school.
HOWEVER....We must strongly urge every single person who attended, and who made some very valid and sensible points, to please put these in writing to the council, as every concern MUST be in writing to be considered as part of the consultation process. A form that can be used to submit your thoughts can be found by clicking here. Alternatively, please send an e-mail to dregspringconsultation@north-ayrshire.gov.uk This applies to every single person, whether you came along tonight or not.
5th March - Afternoon
SPRINGSIDE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE REFUSED ENTRY TO NORTH AYRSHIRE COUNCILS PUBLIC MEETING.
Several members of the campaign committee turned up at Cunninghame house this afternoon to attend the full council meeting. We had made 30 copies of our "Big Bruvver" DVD to enable us to hand one to each of the 30 councillors, in the hope that they would take them home and watch some of the footage from the Diary Room event.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that the council was discussing the future of Sheltered Housing wardens, the room had filled up very quickly with sheltered housing residents. Fortunately we knew one of the residents and he took our DVD's upstairs for us, so at least they did get given out.
We were told the room could only take 55 people and that it was full. We asked if 10 people came out, could the 7 of us get in but we were still told no.
We stood outside Cunninghame House in protest from 1.30pm to 4pm.......we may not have been in the meeting but we were still very visible to a lot of people and got ourselves a bit more publicity!
4th March
Mrs Elma Stevenson, the first headteacher of Springside Primary School, has visited the school today and has spoken to some of the action group fighting to save the school. Mrs Stevenson has given us her thoughts on the proposed school closure, and is backing us in our campaign.
The thoughts that Mrs Stevenson has given to us, with her permission to reprint them are as follows:-
"When I came as Headteacher to Springside Primary School, it was housed in a two-classroom building in the grounds of the Institute. We had two classes of Infants, Primary 1 and 2 and the children from Primary 3-7 walked each day in all weathers to Dreghorn. This had been the situation for 40 years.
We were the first school in Ayrshire to have a Nursery Nurse on our staff and to train student nursery nurses attending Kilmarnock College.
There was much unemployment then and few privately owned houses. The parents were very supportive of the school and a parent/teacher group was started. Some Mums came in to help with painting and storytelling etc and a good relationship was begun.
The expansion of Irvine New Town towards the village of Springside prompted Mr Keilly from HMI, to support the proposal to return the children from their "40 years away" to the heart of the village, and a new single-stream, semi-open plan school was built. The provision of this school in Springside, was a transfusion to the life blood of the village.
I have no doubt that this alone has regenerated the village, and it seems obvious that to close the school would return the village to the depression it suffered previously."
Mrs Elma Stevenson
1st Head Teacher of Springside Primary School
The Save Springside School Campaign Committee would like to sincerely thank Mrs Stevenson for her support, and for allowing us to use her quotes to assist us in our campaign. Thanks also go to Aileen McLanachan from the committee, for getting in touch with Mrs stevenson and letting her know of our plight. Thanks to both of you.
1st March
Our "Big Bruvver" Diary room has proved to be a great success with everything falling into place on the day..................
This morning, yet again, saw a magnificent turnout from the people of Springside who all wanted to sh
ow their support for our campaign by airing their views to Big Bruvver, in the Save Springside School Diary Room. We had secured a real big brother chair from big Brother 8 and big brother celebrity hijack shows, and this proved to be a real hit and made our diary room a real success. Both young and elderly, along with current and past pupils, all aired their views and feelings on the school closure, and the impact that it would have on our community.
Again, we have to say a huge thank You for the people of Springside turning out to support this event and showing the campaign committee and North Ayrshire Council that they really do care about their school and their village.
It was very clear from the comments that were being made, that the feelings and passions that people have relating to the school are very strong, and on occasions we had a few tears from some of the younger kids who really want to save the school. It was clear to see the emotions that people were feeling, and that was very important to us, as that was one of the main reasons for creating the Diary Room in the first place, as these emotions are something that cannot be seen from simply reading someones comments on paper.
This footage will be pulled together onto a DVD and will be presented to NAC on 14th March, accompanied by a full transcript of what every person said. This will enable a lot of people's v
iews to be aired to the council in a way that they may not have been able to put into words.
As with everything we have done in this campaign, the support of the villagers was incredible, and we only hope that the Education Executive take on board the strength of feeling in Springside and reconsider their proposals. They certainly won't be able to say that they have not been told how the people of the village feel, and what their worries are about the future of the village if the school was to be taken from us.
Once again, Thank You to everyone who worked extremely hard in pulling the day together, and to the people of the village for turning out to make it a success.
29th February
Confirmation has been received from Strathclyde Police that the ammendments to our planned route, and the compromises that we were prepared to make have all been agreed by the officials. This is fantastic news as we were a little concerned that we may not have had the backing and support of the police. The police have however, issued us with some rules WHICH MUST BE ADHERED TO!!!!
28th February
A meeting took place with Strathclyde Police traffic division, and NAC's roads department today, to discuss the "drive slow" procession on 7th March. Objections were raised over the route we proposed to take for fear of creating too much disruption with so many junctions needing covered by the police, and for safety fears for the children. However they were sympathetic to our cause and the reason for the procession, and so we agreed a compromise with them on the proposed route to be taken. Full details can be seen by clicking here. We have yet to receive confirmation that this new route, and that the comprimises we agreed are acceptable to more senior officials. We will update you with any news as soon as we receive it.
26th February
A second batch of questions were submitted to North Ayrshire Council today, requesting answers before the meeting with Carol Kirk on 5th March. These questions centred round the supposed capacity of our school, the impact on the community and about the lack of answers to our last lot of questions. This submission to NAC can be viewed by clicking here.
22nd February
John Loughton, chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament, and winner of Big Brother Celebrity Hijack, has given his backing to the people of Springside in their fight against North Ayrshire Council's proposals to close our school.
In his press release John States:-
"I think community solidarity, and standing up for what you believe in, even against the system, and sometimes against the odds, is what activism is all about. It seems this is happening in Springside and I support whole-heartedly their efforts to keep this vital organ of their community alive."
The campaign committee would like to thank John for his support and kind words of encouragement.
21st February
Today saw the campaign committee secure the use of one of Big Brother's chairs for our "Big Bruvver" Diary room event on 1st March. If you saw either Big Brother 8 or Big Brother Celebrity HIjack, then you will surely recognise the chair to the left. This is a massive boost to our campaign as we believe that we will have a huge turnout of kids wanting to talk to "Big Bruvver" about evictions, and to sample what it was like to be a real BB housemate sitting on the chair.
20th February
Today saw the Springside "Save our School Campaign" featured on the front cover of BOTH the Irvine Times AND the Irvine Herald. This was fantastic exposure for our campaign and we really do have to say a massive thank you to both of these newspapers for the coverage they have given us. The Irvine Times featured the story of our march on their front page, that took place on the 13th February, and the Irvine Herald featured a story on their front page about ourselves, John Galt and Towerlands taking our kids out of school for the afternoon on the 7th March. Both papers had utilised a similar photograph to the one on the left, spelling out "Save Springside School". This level of exposure will hopefully be maintained through to the end of our campaign, as we are in regular talks with the papers, and are keeping them informed of events as they unfold.
18th February
Two members of the Save Springside School campaign committee attended the meeting that took place this evening with Carol Kirk (Director of education) and the parents of Towerlands Primary School. This was to guage the type and quality of meeting we can expect on the 5th March, when Carol Kirk comes along to speak to ourselves in Springside Primary at 7pm. As a result of the meeting at Towerlands, we would urge you to come along and voice your concerns directly to the head of NAC Education, face to face.
13th February
What a fantastic turnout we had today for the kids' march through the Rivergate Mall in Irvine. Over 200 people turned out to show there support for our campaign.
We all met up at the bandstand and handed out t-shirts to all the children who were there, and lots of the adults also wore our "Hands Off Our School" t-shirts. After a bit of shouting and chanting we marched through the mall and out to Cunninghame House where we were welcomed by Carol Kirk (Education Director) and Jan Ward (Director of Primary School Services). They took the banner which was presented to them by Lucy Hulbert, and also a copy of the "Save Our School" poem, which was handed over by it's author, Kerina Clark.
A massive thank you yet again goes out to the people of Springside for showing their support to the campaign committee, by turning out in huge numbers. This continual support has got to help show, that as a community, we will stand together as one.
Our thanks must also go to Cllr Joan Sturgeon, and Cllr Alan Hill, who both marched with us whilst wearing one of our t-shirts, showing the support that the SNP party are giving us.
Overall the day was a huge success with absolutely no trouble whatsoever, and everything went exactly to plan......even the weather couldn't have been any better!!
Jennifer McKerrall had managed to arrange for West FM to do an interview at Cunninghame House, and as a result of that we have been featured yet again on their news bulletins throughout the day, including a statement made to West FM by Joan Sturgeon backing our campaign.
for photos of this event click here
12th February
Today we secured the backing of all the members of the SNP party within North Ayrshire. This backing is much appreciated and we hope that this is just the start of things to come. We will be speaking to all 30 councillors to try and present our case to them, meanwhile we would just like to say a massive thank you for the backing and support that Alan HIll, Joan Sturgeon and the other members have pledged. Your help and advice is also much appreciated.
8th February
Our campaign committee escalated our concerns to the national media yesterday, and as a result the Sun, and the Daily Record are both looking at our case, and we were also featured all day today on the hourly news bulletins on West FM, following a telephone interview regarding the lack of information from NAC.
7th February
Last night saw a good turnout of concerned villagers who wanted to know whet the answers were from North Ayrshire Council, and they wanted to know what they could do to help. Most people who attended completed their views on one of the official reply sheets that were part of the consultation paperwork. The people were annoyed that NAC had not made these forms available to the community as a whole, but only to parents.
What NAC don't seem to realise here, is that although they are only looking at a school closure, the villagers whole way of life will be changed, the village will change, and the community spirit, which at the moment is probably stronger than it has ever been, will be lost.
It was once more clearly evident that the people of Springside will not sit back and let NAC take away our school and our community. Springside is a village in it's own right, and we should be allowed to keep our school.
Pledges of support from the villagers for next Wednesdays march through the mall was tremendous and we expect a good turnout on the day. We are in discussions with the BBC to secure their coverage which would be a follow up to last weeks coverage. The biggest and most crucial factor in determining if they will come or not, will be the anticipated turnout by the village.
5th February
We finally received some answers from NAC for the questions that we submitted to them on 17th January. However about 90% of the questions have been answered in such a way that the question we actually asked has not been answered. We will be taking this up with Carol Kirk, as this proves that they don't seem to be willing to give us a proper consultation.
Answers will be posted on the page titled NAC's reply to questions.
3rd February
Last night saw several of the Campaign committee, brave the heavy rain and winds, to drop a note through every single door in Springside. This note thanked all who attended the handpainting day, notified people of our forthcoming public meeting on 6th February, gave details of the BBC airing time, and also details of this website. Everyone in the village now has the opportunity to see exactly what is happening with the campaign.
Today saw the village of Springside, and their campaign to save Springside Primary School being shown on BBC1 Scotland. This has gone out to the whole of Scotland, and will have been seen by many, many politicians & MSP's etc.
We have to say a massive Thank You to the BBC for taking the time to come to Springside, and helping us to publicise our fight to save the school. Their feature was all about the cutbacks being forced upon local councils due to Council Tax frezes etc, and we are grateful that the BBC chose Springside as the campaign that was being extremely active in fighting these cutbacks. we have to remember, they could have chosen anywhere in Scotland to do a feature, but they chose Springside!!
We have meetings organised with both the Irvine Times and Irvine Herald tomorrow morning, as both of their photographers were at our event on Saturday. We intend to really push forward Springside's campaign with the media, as we feel the silence from NAC has gone on long enough.
Again, we have to say Well done and Thank you to all the team who pulled yesterdays hand painting day together, to the people who turned out in large numbers to support us, the local media for sending out their photographers to support us, and a really big thank you to the BBC, not just for coming along yesterday, but for the fantastic coverage they gave us on air this afternoon.
2nd February 2008.
The Springside Save Our School Campaign Committee held a hand painting session this morning in the community centre. We have to say a big thank you to all the people who turned out to support our village in our time of need. We had far more people turn out to show their support than we could have imagined and the banner painting was a huge success.
To top the morning off, we had arranged for the BBC to have a camera crew and reporters in attendance, and as a result our campaign will be shown on BBC1 Sunday 3rd February. The "Politics Show" programme starts at 12noon, however we have been told the Scottish side kicks in between 
12-30 and 1-30pm. The BBC filmed the handpainting being done, interviewed various adults and children who were in attendance. They also recorded an extremely loud demonstration outside the school, showing the strength of feeling the Springside people have. They are running a story on the cutbacks and savings that the councils are having to make, and wanted to use our campaign as a real example of these cutbacks.
Both the Irvine Times and the Irvine Herald photographers were present and hopefully we will have some exposure in the local media this coming week.
We now have 2 large hand print banners to deliver to North Ayrshire Council on Wednesday 13th February. We will need your support on the 13th, especially the children of the village. Please contact us and let us know if you are able to make it along to support our campaign.
Click for Photos showing strength of Springside
Once again, Thank You to all who gave up their time to support the campaign committee in their efforts to get our fight publicised.
December 07 and January 08
We put questionaires together and our full response document was submitted to the council, asking for questions to be answered. We had regular meetings to discuss our campaign and what we wanted to do to get our fight heard.
November 2007
We held our first public meeting to advise people what was happening regarding the proposed closure of the school, giving them details of the proposals etc, and canvassed for support to assist in saving the school.
Photographs courtesy of and copyright of Steve McKendrick, Irvine Herald