Legal questions linger over council’s school closure plans

Legal questions surrounding a county council’s school closure consultation remain unresolved despite the authority’s commitment to restart the process.

The day after Flintshire County Council put plans to close five schools on pause due to the Senedd election period, Cabinet Member for Education, Welsh Language, Culture and Leisure Cllr Mared Eastwood was asked whether the council’s own legal advice acknowledged any areas of concern in the consultation process.

But three weeks after receiving a legal challenge alleging there were serious flaws in the council’s consultation, Cllr Eastwood was unable confirm to councillors whether there was any basis to the claims.

Earlier this month – more than a year after the process began to replace four Flintshire Catholic schools with a super-school in Flint and merge two Saltney schools – the authority received a legal challenge from parents and governors at St David’s Catholic Primary School – one of the four Catholic schools affected.

Legal representatives from firm Addleshaw Goddard said there were concerns over the public consultation – including the decision not to consider the weight of responses objecting to the proposal, the quality of impact assessments relating to school transport and additional learning needs provision and the use of prudential borrowing to fund the super-school.

As the authority applied the same consultation process to both the super school scheme and the plan to close Saltney Ferry Primary and merge it with Saltney Wood Memorial, both proposals were temporarily suspended.

On Wednesday, Flintshire Council issued a statement saying the proposals would be shelved until after the Senedd elections. Once the elections are completed the consultation process must begin again.

But at a meeting of the Education Scrutiny commmittee meeting on Thursday (March 26) Cllr David Coggins Cogan wanted to know whether the process needed to be changed to address the legal challenge before the consultation restarts.

Cllr Eastwood said that the authority could not comment as no decision had been accepted yet.

“The consultation was deferred to allow us to take our own legal advice and fully consider that in relation to whether there were flaws or no flaws in relation to the consultation document,” she said.

“Nothing’s been accepted in relation to that at this moment – we’re not in a position to comment.”

Cllr Andrew Parkhurst raised an additional concern over the future of St Anthony’s Catholic Primary in Saltney – which under the original proposals would be scheduled to close in September.

The authority had already committed to look into reports that some parents had been unable to select St Anthony’s though the council’s online portal for their children this September amid uncertainty over the school’s future.

A recent recommendation to extend the closure plan by a year has been superseded by the suspension of the process.

“What is happening with the admissions at St Anthony’s,” he asked. “All the staff concerned, the parents, the teachers, the children, the whole community cannot be left in limbo while this is being considered, so there needs to be absolute clarity for all concerned as to what the admissions process is in September.

“There has been a lack of clarity and a concern that parents and children have been perhaps disadvantaged inadvertently. This committee does need to look carefully at the admission process and it needs to be done urgently because the clock is ticking and parents and teachers need to know what the situation is.

“There needs to be absolute clarity that admissions are open and the school isn’t going to close in September, period.”

Cllr Eastwood assured Cllr Parkhurst that St Anthony’s was available as a school option for parents on Flintshire’s online portal.

“St Anthony’s is on the online portal whilst they remain as the admitting authority,” she said. “Admissions will still be taken through the online portal until such time as a final decision is made one way or the other.”