Present: Brian Dobson, Cath Robinson, Judith Archdale.

Apologies: Susan Gill, Rob Malley.

The group considered what the main elements of buildings transition would be. There was concern that the specialist facilities and equipment available in the current special schools may not be able to be duplicated in all the new schools, due to a lack of finance. One example given was hydro therapy pools.

It was stated that there was a great deal of expensive specialist equipment, some of which had donated by parent groups, charities, voluntary groups etc. in the current schools. If it was planned that all new equipment would be provided for the new schools, this would be expensive and wasteful. The expectation was that much equipment and some furniture would be moved from the current special schools to the new special schools, or, if not required by the new schools, to mainstream schools. The principle should be that, wherever possible, the equipment should go with the child. In some cases it may be possible, because of the geographical nature of the schools involved, for virtually all the equipment and resources to move from a current school to a new school.

It was decided that the group needed to get a feel for the scale of the task of moving specialist equipment and resources from the current schools, by visiting at least a selection of them. It was agreed that Brian Dobson would be asked to arrange a visit to Lister Lane School as a first step, followed by Greenfield and Branshaw. The group then decided to have a look round Bolling to establish what type of equipment, furniture and resources would be likely to have to be moved. This was done and some notes taken by Brian Dobson.

During the look around Bolling, it was noted that there were a number of hoists and tracking which was designed for particular spaces. It would need to be considered whether it would be possible to move these, or whether some element of new equipment would need to be provided. There was a large amount of specialist, expensive and bulky equipment, including various types of wheelchairs and other special chairs, as well as less specialist furniture, equipment and other resources. Other particular items were beds, baths, showers and security cameras. It was felt that the new schools would need a lot of storage and shelving. It was also felt that an improvement from the current situation would be the provision of automatic doors internally. Bolling has a specialist Light Room, with various projectors and switches. It needed to be decided if this could be recreated in the new schools. One other issue to consider is equipment owned by others, such as the NHS, and how it would be decided to where, or if, this should be moved.