Causeway Academy - Minister facing list of school building projects that will take ‘decades’

A NEW campus for Causeway Academy could be decades away unless the Executive takes the Department of Education’s long list of capital projects and allocates cash on the basis of priority.

That was the suggestion Education Minster Paul Givan made when questioned in the Assembly over funding for a new purpose-built site.

Causeway Academy is due to open in September 2026.

The new school will be formed by the amalgamation of Coleraine College, Dunluce School and North Coast Integrated College

When the merger was announced, officials said they planned to seek “major capital investment” for a new-build campus.

Last year however the Minster said the business case he’d been presented with would require “an unprecedented investment.”

Instead, when the school opens pupils will be spread across the three legacy school campuses.

On Tuesday when the Minister faced questions from local MLAs at Stormont, he repeated his view that he £20m estimated cost of the new school was “simply not affordable” under his department’s current capital budget.

“I have 114 projects in the major capital programme,” said Mr Givan.

“The projected time frame to complete that list runs to decades and that is before we add Causeway Academy.

“If Members are serious about providing solutions, as, I believe, they are, we need an Executive that will allocate capital funds on the basis of their priorities so that I can take forward the demands that Members rightly make on behalf of their constituents.

“We cannot do that if funding does not follow what people articulate in the Chamber.”

Read the full story in this week's Chronicle