Scottish Water helped get Portobello High School opening back on track

As we already told you this week hundreds of pupils will move into a purpose-built new school earlier than expected, after Scottish Water helped overcome a major hurdle to completion.

Staff with the publicly-owned water company are delighted to have helped bring forward the opening date of the new Portobello High School in Edinburgh.

The City of Edinburgh Council has now written to parents to advise them pupils will be at their desks in the modern new facility in October, three months earlier than the anticipated January 2017 opening date.

Bill Elliot, Communities Team Regional Manager with Scottish Water, said: “It’s fantastic news for the pupils, parents, teachers and support staff that they will be getting in earlier than expected.

“We are delighted to have played a part in accelerating the process and want to wish them all the very best in the new building, which we hope will be a huge asset to education in that part of Edinburgh for many years to come.”

Connecting the new school to the city’s sewer network posed a series of challenges, to ensure it would not put pressure on other parts of the system – particularly during extremely wet weather – that might result in flooding.

So, Scottish Water’s engineers came up with a solution which involves laying around 430m of new waste water pipe across Portobello Golf Course to connect to the public sewer at Stanley Street. The solution also makes use of storm water storage tanks beneath the golf course.

As part of the plan to run a new 225mm pipe diagonally across the golf course, Scottish Water has met with Edinburgh Leisure, which operates the nine-hole course and with the three golf clubs which are based there.

The eight weeks of work will involve excavation works on the course, however, Scottish Water has carefully planned the works so that none of the excavation will affect either tees or greens and to ensure that only one fairway will be affected at any given time.

Meanwhile, a temporary sewer pipe has also been laid, connecting the school with the public sewer at Park Avenue. It will be used until the work on the permanent solution is completed.