Education

Decision day set for controversial Swansea Valley ‘super school’ plans

Neath Port Talbot Council’s cabinet is set to make a decision whether to replace three Swansea Valley primary schools with a new English medium school in Pontardawe at a meeting on 19 April.

Published

2 months ago

12th April 2023

Editor

The council’s former Cabinet approved the proposed replacement of primary schools at Alltwen, Llangiwg and Godre’rgraig with the new school plus a specialist learning centre and public swimming pool in October 2021.

But after the May 2022 local elections, the council’s new Rainbow Coalition administration pledged to review the new school proposal, this being followed by a successful legal challenge to the plans by parent group RhAG in relation to a Welsh Language Impact Assessment.

As a result, a new proposal with a fresh round of stakeholder consultation took place between 5 December 2022 and 7 February 2023. It included holding a public meeting in Pontardawe and online, and meetings with stakeholders including school governors, staff and parents. The consultation period was also extended for two weeks to allow for additional comments.

Neath Port Talbot Council say that now that the consultation has been completed, a Joint meeting of the Cabinet and Education, Skills and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee will have the opportunity to consider the consultation report and offer views to the Cabinet before it decides its course of action. This meeting will take place at 2pm on the 19^th April, prior to the meeting of Cabinet.

Cabinet will make the decision on whether to progress the proposal to its next stage, which will involve either approving the publication of a proposal to go ahead with the new school, or to abandon the proposal.

Sioned Williams, Plaid Cymru Member of the Senedd for South Wales West has called for the plans to be rejected. The rainbow coalition which has put forward the current proposals, also includes Plaid Cymru.

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