Our energetic and helpful MSP (for Roxburgh and Berwickshire) has a weekly column in the
Berwickshire with the rather unattractive title of Mound of Information. This week he recounts the highlights of his Berwickshire tour which included 'surgeries' in Paxton and Hutton. Paxton was mostly about local worries about planning and the Orchard project which given its long drawn out and distorted history might well be called Heap of Misinformation. In Hutton 'a delegation updated us on the campaign to save the school. It does seem sensible to consider its future together with that of the village hall. A new hall co-located with the school on land that is apparently available seems an option worth considering'
This is an elderly chestnut whose day may have gone and a slightly muddled one. The idea (and not a bad one) was that if the school was not only saved but upgraded to include a hall and other facilities (as was once agreed) it could well double as a community centre/village hall. This now seems an unlikely prospect as the most we can hope for is a stay of execution on closing the school at the end of 2005. I don't see the authorities forced to keep on a school against their better judgement also find the money (they claim 400,000) to bring it up to an acceptable standard on the scale originally proposed-especially as they seem determined to classify Hutton, indefinitely, as a single teacher school. With 12 on the roll at present and little prospect, in the foreseeable future, of it rising again to the magic figure of 20+ (for an extra teacher) I doubt if minds will be changed in Newtown St Boswells. And if our MSP is envisaging a new Hall incorporating a school on a new site then I don't see that as a starter with all the money that just isn't around. The reference to land that is apparently available may be to the offer by the MSP for East Lothian to provide some for an expanded village school-which is where we came in.
