Work is about to start on the £19.3 million new shared school campus in Motherwell.

Councillor Jim McCabe, Leader of North Lanarkshire Council, cut the first turf on the site at Milton Street on Wednesday 25 November.

The campus will be home to the new Cathedral Primary School, Firpark ASN Primary School and Daisy Park Community Centre

It marks an important development in the council's latest school modernisation programme -Schools and Centres 21 - which will see £250 million spent on modernising school buildings and, where appropriate, incorporating new community facilities.

Councillor McCabe explained: "There are currently ten campus projects underway across North Lanarkshire, including five secondary schools, five primary schools, three ASN (Additional Support Needs) schools, one nursery centre, two community centres and one cultural centre. The majority of these projects are new builds with some being a mixture of new build and full refurbishment.

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"This new school campus will provide a first class learning environment for the pupils of Cathedral and Firpark primaries as well as a great new community facility for local people by the summer of 2011.

"We have an enviable track record of delivering new schools on time and on budget. Our previous school modernisation programme saw 24 new schools built across North Lanarkshire. I'm confident that this one will be every bit as successful."

The new campus is being built by Morgan Ashurst and Fergus Phillips, Project Manager, added: "It's always a very exciting time when work begins and we hope all the children, staff and community will continue to enjoy watching their school take shape over the coming months."

This is the second phase of development for the area's schools and follows on from the Education 2010 PPP programme.

Unlike the previous school building programme, which was paid for using a Public Private Partnership funding arrangement, all of the funding for Schools and Centres 21 comes directly from money the council has set aside for these improvements.

(GK/KMcA)