THE council is set to award a contract to a firm to construct the new Muirkirk Primary.

Tenders were returned to East Ayrshire Council back in February and a preferred bidder was chosen.

At a Cabinet meeting last week, Councillors approved recommendations to proceed to awarding a contract to build the new school.

The council have also accepted that the construction of the new school will cost between £5.8 million and £6.2 million - that's up from £4.9 million originally allocated for the project in December 2014.

Councillors approved of recommendations to authorise council officers to proceed to the awarding of a contract by setting additional costs of up to £1.3 million associated with the project against the balance of the Capital Programme Education Project Contingency fund.

Speaking at last Wednesday's meeting, Councillor Maureen McKay said: "We have to move forward. We are committed to doing this work.

"It is of course a real area of concern that here we are across the ten year Capital Programme and we're talking about costs which are an increase of in excess of 25 per cent in relation to this particular element of that ten year Capital Programme. What confidence could I actually have that we are not going to see a 25 per cent increase across the entirety of the Capital Programme?"