Council bosses blamed a build up of silt for delaying work to fix the flooding at Woodlands primary – with NAC unable to say when work will start or finish.

North Ayrshire Council say the area behind the school where water is to be drained to has now been ‘successfully cleared’ but can’t say when the eight-year issue will finally be fixed.

Irvine West Cllr Scott Gallacher asked for an update on work to drain the playing field at Woodlands Primary, after £132,000 was previously set aside by the Labour administration after complaints from Woodlands parents.

He added: “This is simply to try to put to bed some conflicting stories and rumours that have doing the rounds.”

Cabinet Member for Education said a solution had been developed, involving draining water from the school playing field to a section of adjacent land, which NAC believed had no previous flooding issues.

Cllr John Bell said: “The council’s property management investment team are continuing to make progress with this project and have been keeping the school abreast with developments.

“Intrusive site investigations have been undertaken and the civil engineer has provided a design layout, the proposed layout has been shared with the flooding team, officers in education and the head teacher.

“All parties recognise that the overall space for the children will be impacted slightly by these proposals however they accept that this compromise is necessary to create the usable play area.

“Following approval of the proposals we were awaiting the final cost and programme to enable the works to commence, the proposals involve draining water from the school playing field to a section of adjacent land. The area which will receive the diverted water previously had no identified flooding issues, however in recent months there have been flooding issues in the area of open space adjacent to the school and these have to be investigated and held up the project.

“The new flooding issues were found to be connected with the build up of silt which has been successfully cleared and the flooding has subsided. The area continues to be monitored by the council’s flooding team, the designed proposed flooding elevation works is currently being reviewed to inform any potential amendments to prevent future silt build up and the programme to undertake works on the playing fields are now being finalised. And officers continue to push for a satisfactory resolution to the drainage issues as quickly as possible.”