The Highland Council's Adult and Services Committee have approved £1.567m funding for nine new education and leisure projects throughout the area.

The nine projects which received approval for funding include:

• Black Isle Education Centre - £50,000 for short improvement works on the existing buildings



• Cradlehall Primary School (Inverness) - £50,000 for the first phase of works on refurbishment of the school toilets



• Mallaig High School - £50,000 for a feasibility study into the conversion of a former school kitchen to a community youth facility



• Milton of Leys Primary School (Inverness) - £650,000 for the construction of a three classroom extension to address the projected increase in the school roll in the short to medium term
-- Advertisement --





• Nairn Leisure Centre - refurbishment approximately £311,000



• Plockton Primary School - £200,000 improvement works to the main building including replacing or upgrading existing windows, refurbishing toilets and replacing the roofs over the toilets



• St Clement's School (Dingwall) - £50,000 for resurfacing of the car park



• Teachers access to Council e-mail system - £135,000 estimated set-up costs for a project to include all teaching staff on the Microsoft Outlook system used by all other office-based Council staff



• Vehicles - £71,000 to cover the purchase an additional vehicle for the Sutherland school transport fleet.

Members also approved the purchase and installation of temporary modular accommodation at Spean Bridge Primary School at an estimated £300,000 to £500,000. The additional accommodation is to meet anticipated increased demands on the school roll over the next five years.

The temporary accommodation will be provided subject to agreement with Community Schools Highland Ltd (owners and managers of the Spean Bridge Primary School building).

Councillor Alasdair Christie, Chair of the Adult and Services Committee said: "These additional investments will see improvements to education buildings, facilities and transport; provision of new youth facilities; leisure facilities and IT communications systems for teachers."

(JP/MH)