Proposals for a super-school on the North Shore in Ardrossan have been green-lit by Scottish ministers.

The decision to close Winton Primary and Ardrossan Academy to incorpotate them into the £60m Ardrossan Campus development was made this week.

The land requires 'extensive remediation', having been contaminated with heavy metals by years of processing at the former Shell site.

A North Ayrshire Council spokesperson said: "The first stage of development will be extensive remediation of the site, and while timescales are subject to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the council’s aspiration is that the new facility will be ready by early 2024."

The proposed campus will educate children aged three to 18 and will include resources relocated from Ardrossan library and swimming/leisure facilities.

Councillor John Bell, cabinet member for education, said: “The Scottish ministers had to be certain that we undertook and followed all the correct procedures. We engaged extensively throughout and we will continue to do so as we start developing our plans.

 “These are tough times but we have to look to the future and this will be such a positive development for young peopleof this area.”

Community engagement work and a statutory consultation exercise resulted in 80 per cent of the 786 completed responses in favour of building a new campus on the North Shore site.

The majority of those respondents who were parents, carers, school staff and Ardrossan Academy pupils supported the plans, but most Ardrossan residents who replied disagreed.

READ MORE: Council boss pushes North Shore Campus despite fear of contamination

A spokesperson for NAC Conservative group previously told the Herald they were opposed to the decision to build the school at the North Shore site because they don’t believe it is the best location and have concerns about ground contamination.

The spokesperson said: “We believe it to be unfortunate that there was not a site selection process to identify a more central site for the town and believe that this has been a missed opportunity."

Scottish Hazards, a charity campaigning to improve health and safety, is against building on contaminated land, especially schools.

A spokesperson previously said: “This is a view not shared by a growing number of local authorities and plans are being passed for domestic housing and public building on these sites when the risks of doing so are not fully understood."