A formal consultation has opened on plans to build a new £35m Ysgol Heol Goffa in Llanelli — giving families their first official say on a project that has taken years of protest and political pressure to reach this point.
Carmarthenshire Council is proposing to relocate the special school to a new site and increase its capacity to 150, with the new building due to open in September 2029.
Parents, staff, pupils, governors and the wider community have until Tuesday 21 July to respond, after the council’s cabinet agreed to launch the consultation at its meeting on 1 June.
Ysgol Heol Goffa is the only standalone special school in Carmarthenshire, teaching children and young people aged three to 19 with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties from across the whole county.
The consultation document lays bare the pressure on the current building: the school has 132 pupils against a capacity of 118 — and has been over capacity every year for the past five years.
Inspection body Estyn found in November 2025 that several areas of the school were no longer fit for purpose, with classrooms too small for pupils to move around — particularly wheelchair users — and outdated facilities.
The new school would be built on council-owned land next to the recently completed Ysgol Pen Rhos, around three miles from the current site — the same location earmarked for the scheme the council abandoned — with pupils also able to use the hydrotherapy pool at the neighbouring Pentre Awel development.
The £35m cost would be split 75/25 between the Welsh Government and the council — though the Welsh Government share remains subject to full business case approval, a question Labour councillors raised last month as Plaid Cymru formed its new government in Cardiff Bay.
The consultation also reveals the council considered — and rejected — a larger 250-place school that would have covered autism provision as well, discounted “due to budget constraints”.
That decision may raise eyebrows among campaigners who last year condemned an “appalling scandal” over autism provision in the town. The council is separately investing £4m in a new autism unit at Ysgol Glan-y-Mor in Burry Port.
Today’s consultation marks a remarkable turnaround in a saga that began when the council scrapped the original 120-place replacement scheme in 2024 after costs escalated.
That decision sparked anger across Llanelli, with MP Dame Nia Griffith branding it the “wrong choice” and a 5,000-name petition demanding a U-turn handed in to County Hall.
Under sustained pressure from parents, campaigners and opposition councillors, the council eventually agreed to press ahead with a new, larger scheme — 30 places bigger than the one it had axed, and on the very same site.
The school has also faced a separate crisis over nursing provision, which drew the intervention of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales earlier this year.
Cllr Glynog Davies, cabinet member for education, said the consultation was “the next step towards Carmarthenshire County Council’s delivery of a new 150 pupil Heol Goffa school”.
“We are asking the school community to have their say on these proposals and help to shape the development of an increased education provision for pupils with severe learning difficulties and profound learning difficulties in the Llanelli area,” he said.
The consultation document notes Estyn’s recommendations for the school include addressing concerns identified in a safeguarding letter, alongside strengthening quality assurance systems.
If the proposal proceeds, a statutory notice is expected this winter, with a final decision in March 2027. The existing Heol Goffa site would be declared redundant, with the community given first refusal before it goes on the open market.
Responses can be submitted via the council’s online survey, by email to MEPConsultations@carmarthenshire.gov.uk, or in writing to Owain Lloyd, Director of Education and Leisure, County Hall, Castle Hill, Carmarthen, SA31 1JP.
