NEATH PORT TALBOT: “Nearly all” specialist places are full, so the council wants 32 more for autistic pupils at its two new schools

Neath Port Talbot Council wants to open two new 16-place units for children with communication and interaction difficulties, the category it uses for autism, inside the two schools it is still building. The reason, it has told councillors, is that “nearly all specialist provisions continue to be at full capacity”.

A report to cabinet next Wednesday (21 October) asks for permission to consult on a primary-age unit at the new Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Rhosafan in Sandfields from September 2027. A secondary unit would follow at the rebuilt Llangatwg Community Comprehensive School in Cadoxton from September 2028.

Autism at both ends, and Welsh-medium places too

The council says it has added places since 2023, including 16 for autistic pupils at Blaenhonddan Primary, 15 at Ysgol Hendrefelin and three at Waunceirch Primary. Another 40 went in at Ysgol Maes y Coed for pupils with severe and profound learning difficulties.

“Despite the increase in LSC and Special School planned places, nearly all specialist provisions continue to be at full capacity,” the report says.

Its review of places for pupils with additional learning needs found the biggest demand for the next three years at primary level is for communication and interaction difficulties, alongside severe and profound multiple learning difficulties. At secondary level it is the same, plus cognition and learning difficulties and behavioural, emotional and social needs.

It adds that “there is an increasing need for Welsh-medium specialist provisions at both primary and secondary level”. A Welsh-medium secondary unit for cognition and learning has already been approved for the Ystalyfera campus of Ysgol Gymraeg Ystalyfera Bro Dur from September 2027, and the same meeting decides whether to consult on splitting that school in two.

Rhosafan first, Llangatwg a year later, and both still building sites

The Marine Drive primary in Sandfields has no learning support centre today. Its replacement, which won planning approval in August 2025 for up to 511 pupils with an ALN unit and a Welsh immersion unit, is now due to complete its first phase in summer 2027, with the unit in two purpose-built classrooms.

Llangatwg’s £30m rebuild on Main Road, approved by planners in January, will have 850 places and a two-classroom unit of its own, with the first phase due in summer 2028. When the plans went in last July the council said work would start in early 2026 and that the current building was rated C-, with £6.8m of backlog repairs.

The school’s roll is forecast to fall from 779 now to 600 by 2031, the report says, in a building with room for 1,169. Both units were written into the council’s £106.2m bid for five new schools back in November 2022.

The same squeeze in Swansea and Llanelli

Neath Port Talbot is not the only council building its way out of the problem. Swansea’s cabinet decides on Thursday (15 October) whether to release land off Mynydd Garnllwyd Road in Morriston for Ysgol Calon Lân, the city’s new 350-place special school, 100 more places than it has now, after all eight people who answered the legal notice objected.

In Llanelli, Carmarthenshire approved a 150-pupil replacement for Ysgol Heol Goffa in July 2025 at between £28m and £35m, two years after scrapping a £10m scheme as unaffordable, and shared the design brief with the school last October. Parents there have been asking for a build date ever since.

Swansea Council says more than 6,600 of its primary pupils have additional learning needs, around 1,600 of them needing more than their school can normally provide, and councillors have demanded the city’s share of the £322m Wales received on the back of special needs spending in England.

£653,000 a year and “no current funding identified”

The buildings are paid for through the Welsh Government’s Sustainable Communities for Learning programme. Running them is another matter: the council puts the cost of 16 full places at £332,272 a year at Llangatwg and £321,120 at Rhosafan.

“The Council will need to include these additional costs in its medium term financial planning arrangements as there is no current funding identified,” the report says, adding that home-to-school transport costs are “likely” to rise too once they can be estimated.

All three councils are waiting on the same pot. A week ago the Welsh Government and Welsh Labour agreed an extra £60m for additional learning needs across Wales this year, reviving the supplementary budget for a Senedd vote on 3 November, with Labour putting it at around £1,500 per pupil with ALN. How much reaches any of them has not been set out.

The tribunal warning

If the council does nothing, the report lists “financial risks, reputational damage and an increase in appeals to the Education Tribunal to Wales”, and says that “of highest priority, however, is that the needs of the most complex and vulnerable learners are not being met”.

Under the 2018 ALN Act, parents can appeal a council’s decision on a specialist placement and the tribunal can order the council to provide it. The report also warns that without the units pupils could end up in “less suitable, alternative or out-of-county placements”, with extra pressure on transport and education budgets.

The risks of going ahead, it says, include a “negative response from parents of host schools” and specialist staff not being available, though it rates the effect on the workforce as “neutral or positive” because the units create jobs.

Consultation from 2 November to 14 December

Education scrutiny backed the proposal on 1 October. If cabinet, where education sits with Cllr Nia Jenkins, agrees on Wednesday, consultation runs from 2 November to 14 December and the responses come back to cabinet before any statutory notice. The meeting is at 2pm in the Council Chamber, Port Talbot, and online.

Author

Kit Peters

Kit Peters is a journalist and the editor of Swansea Bay News, covering Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire since 2020.