Councillors have welcomed plans to support school pupils with additional support needs in Argyll and Bute.
A report outlined plans for more than £1.7m to support learning centres across the area, as well as making adaptations to Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh.
Additional teacher and support assistant hours are also planned to be made available.
Other projects, which have been kept confidential by the council, also form part of the service provision which was unanimously agreed by the council’s community services committee on Thursday.
Yvonne McNeilly, the committee’s chair and the authority’s policy lead for education, said: “I, unashamedly, am passionate about additional support needs or learning difficulties, with the various terms used over the last 33 years.
“I think this paper is excellent. We cannot wait for national responses and we need to do this.”
Cllr Math Campbell-Sturgess added: “I would also like to warmly welcome this. I do not think I can put into words how grateful I am to see this paper come forward.
“Additional support needs are going to increase, and in the last five or six years it has not been seen from black to white, it is a bigger picture.
“Some young people might be good at some things but not others, so many children will benefit from this.
“Equity is also extremely important – not just geographically, but across communities.”
Cllr Douglas Philand (Independent, Mid Argyll) said: “This is fantastic news to see. Having managed child and adolescent mental health services, the stress when they had to go out of the area is something you could not write, along with the long-term effects of what it does.
“So to see the paper here today is something that has to be applauded.”
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