Doubts were cast over the facilities in Stonehaven and Fraserburgh when they missed out on the latest round of funding from the Scottish Government.

Merging the current Fraserburgh North School and St Andrew’s School, the new £18 million primary school in Fraserburgh was set to accommodate up to 450 pupils and open in February 2026.

Councillors agreed to move ahead with plans for the new school in November 2021 after it was revealed the two existing buildings were in need of “significant” upgrade works.

In Stonehaven, a bid was lodged to help with a new school to replace Dunnottar School and Carronhill School at Ury playing fields. The schools would have capacity for 217 pupils at Dunnottar School and 48 for Carronhill School, each with their own accommodation and with access to shared facilities, as part of a campus approach.

Both projects were overlooked in favour of ten other projects across Scotland in the latest round of funding from the Learning Estate Investment Programme last year.

Now council leader Gillian Owen has confirmed a commitment to building a new Peterhead Community Campus, which she called “long overdue given the state of the current school” but said the council had to be “realistic” about its wider spending plans.

Ms Owen said: “We are building in an extremely volatile market, with dramatic price fluctuations… other projects need to be reduced or reprofiled.”