Frustration rising at delays to delivery of permanent school building in Enfield

Temporary accommodation will accommodate 450 students at second location due to a delay in progressing construction of the planned 1,000-student post primary school

Parents in Enfield have expressed their frustration at the slow pace of progress on delivering the permanent school building for Enfield Community College, as the school prepares to move into yet more prefabs at another location next September.

Parents have also hit out at the waste of taxpayers money in providing yet more temporary accommodation at a second location due to a delay in progressing construction of the 1,000-student post primary school and are also critical of the lack of communication from the Department of Education on the reason for the delay in it going out to tender.

Enfield Community College opened in 2020 with 33 students in the former ESB offices in the town and that initial first year group is now up to 51 students as children from other schools joined. These children are now in third year and total enrolment stands at 270 and is expected to reach 420 this September.

The school was accommodated in the ESB office building for the first year and purpose-built temporary accommodation was installed in the car park the following September. However, Enfield Community College has quickly outgrown that location and while parents had initially hoped the new school would be ready for 2023, instead more temporary accommodation is being installed at the permanent site to cater for the growing numbers in the interim.

While this temporary accommodation will be high quality, it is only designed to cater for 450 students and will not have the capacity needed for the project enrolment numbers for September 2024. It is understood that provision has been made for four extra prefabs to be installed on the site but space on the site is limited beyond that.

If the school is not ready for 2025 and more temporary accommodation is needed, it could have a knock on effect on the new school building as the prefabs are likely to encroach on the permanent school site and could mean it would have to be delivered on a phased basis, which means more delays and higher costs.

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The children do not have any PE Hall at present and won't have until the new build is delivered, a facility that will be required for the school to offer PE as a Leaving Cert subject.

Planning permission was granted in June 2021 for the school and last September Education Minister Norma Foley announced that the project would go to tender by the end of the year but it still hasn't moved on.

In an email to the local Enfield Development Group earlier this month, the Department of Education said it is considering the timeline for the progression to tender of a number of Design and Build projects including Enfield Community College and would advise the patron body as soon as possible. It also stated that the tender process can take 8-10 months and that the construction of 1,000 pupil post primary school on the Design and Build programme cant take 70-80 weeks.

Parent Frank Hughes, who is an architect, fears that if the school does not go to tender in the coming weeks, given this timescale outlined by the Department, the school will not be completed by September 2025.

He said parents can't understand what the delay is and he is "appalled" by the lack of information and clarity on the delivery date from the Department of Education.

"If they don't get it to tender in the next few weeks we will miss opening in 2025. What that will mean is the cost of the building will increase, because they will have to build more new prefabs which will eat into the location of the assembly hall, which will mean that instead of the building going in in one fell swoop, it will have to be done as a phased building and that will increase costs and produce more prefabs and tarmac."

Angela Smith's son is due to start in first year this year and said she thought there was a chance her son would be starting in the new school building but it hasn't even gone to tender yet.

"The school was announced in April 2018. After years of campaigning, we were finally going to get a post primary school. I think people thought at that point the fight was over without realising there was still a lot to be done to get the physical school built.

"It is meant to be a rapid build project, but there is nothing rapid about it, the opposite is true and we can't get concrete information on timelines."

Angela said she regularly checks the Department of Education website and that Enfield Community College has been at Stage 2B detailed design since July 2021. "It is incredibly frustrating," she said.

While they knew the school would be in temporary accommodation for a few years, Angela said money was spent doing up the ESB building, then putting in temporary accommodation and now they are putting in more temporary accommodation on a second site for the same school.

"It is frustrating. The amount of money that gets wasted on temporary accommodation that wouldn't be needed if they had moved forward quicker. Here we are almost five years later, and it hasn’t gone to tender yet, let alone started building. If there are any more delays and they push it to 2026, the first pupils in that school may never see the permanent building."

"I can't understand why it is taking so long and the Department is not communicating what the delay is."

Meanwhile LMETB CEO Martin O'Brien said: “LMETB are very pleased to be the patron of the new school in Enfield and already enrolments at the school have exceeded our expectations. The new school building is being delivered by the Department of Education, the procurement of this school has not been devolved to LMETB. We understand that the Department are advancing the delivery of this major piece of infrastructure for Enfield and we look forward to assisting the Department in any way that we can”.

Meath County Council Cathaoirleach Cllr Nick Killian, who is chair of the Board of Management said the school has been very successful in attracting students, but did say he was concerned at the delay in getting the permanent school to tender.

He said: "The school has been extremely successful in attracting students and that is down to the leadership of the principal Shane Foley and his great staff and we are now planning our move from the centre of Enfield to the site where the new school will be constructed.

"One of my concerns is the delay in announcing the new building going to tender by the Department of Education who are responsible for delivering it. My own view is that if LMETB was directing the project it would be further along.

"Nonetheless, the modular building that will be in place for September will be high quality and include all the specialist rooms."