Parents demand answers over north Wales super-school plans

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

An eight-page legal letter by parents is demanding a county council answers key questions and provides a full updated cost for its super-school plan by tomorrow (22 July).

Parents at the under-threat St David’s Catholic Primary School in Mold were behind the original legal challenge that forced Flintshire Council’s previous super-school consultation process to halt earlier this year.

Now, through their legal representatives Addleshaw Goddard, they have given Flintshire County Council until the end of business on Wednesday, July 22 to provide answers to a series of questions they believe are critical to the proposals. That would give parents a week to consider the responses before the first phase of consultation closes on July 29.

The biggest question is the updated cost. According to the public consultation documents the cost of the super-school scheme is £55 million. Welsh Government is expected to fund 85% of that cost through the Sustainable Communities for Learning Fund with Flintshire Council directly funding the rest through borrowing.

That covers the cost of closing St David’s, St Anthony’s Catholic Primary in Saltney plus St Mary’s Catholic Primary and St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School in Flint and building the new super-school in Flint.

Those costs were calculated in 2024 however and parents are now asking whether they have changed, with inflation and the impact of global conflicts causing the highest inflation in construction industry costs for 30 years.

“The council has failed to update the £55m indicative capital costs figure from the previous consultation and has made only vague reference in the new consultation document to doing so during the process,” stated the solicitors’ letter.

“Has the council taken account of the likely increased costs of a further delay to the scheme by another year from what it envisaged at the time of the initial feasibility study?

“It is hard to see how consultees can give informed comments by 29 July 2026, or how the council can have discharged its statutory and common law duties, by failing to put this information into the public domain as part of this and the previous consultation.”

Those costs also do not include the cost of the previously scrapped consultation which had almost run its full course when stopped.

The letter also asked Flintshire Council to clarify the maintenance costs for St David’s Primary – one of the core reasons given in support of the closure was the significant costs of structural repair.

“The current maintenance costs figures for St David’s set out in the new consultation document – £178,507.05 – are out of date and incorrect,” it said.

“This was the case also in the previous consultation process. The council revised the maintenance figure during the previous process to £90,000. It appears it has made the same mistake again.”

Importantly, the letter also demands that Flintshire County Council reveal precisely what was discussed with the Diocese of Wrexham ahead of the new consultation when both parties met to consider relaunching the plan.

“What meaningful steps were taken by the council and the diocese during this period to reflect on the withdrawn proposals, the overwhelming local opposition to them, the specific concerns that were raised in the 2025 consultation process and the ‘return to the drawing board’ to consider other options to meet the diocese’s and council’s wider objectives,” it asked.

“During the virtual meeting with Governors on June 29, 2026, also attended by Wendy White of the diocese, (Flintshire’s Chief Officer for Education and Youth) Claire Homard stated the council had reviewed other options and feedback before reaching its decision to consult on an unchanged proposal.

“When pressed by our client to explain what those ‘other options’ were, Ms Homard stated she had not intended to say ‘other options’, instead that the consultation feedback had been reviewed and that no alternative options had been considered because the all-through school proposal was a strategic decision of the diocese and council.”

The letter also asks the council to clarify whether the fact no other options were considered means the consultation process has been pre-determined – as it has no Plan B.

The letter, which does not indicate an immediate legal challenge but reserves the right to later on, also questions why planned housing developments around Mold were excluded from pupil-number projections.

This fresh legal letter prompted Flintshire’s Liberal Democrat group – who have long opposed this plan – to call for the consultation to be extended.

Leader of the Lib Dem group Cllr Andrew Parkhurst said: “Councillors should not be learning from solicitors that basic evidence may still be missing from a live statutory consultation.

“The previous process was halted and the Cabinet promised to reflect and improve. They have failed to do this. The only reasonable course of action is to halt the consultation yet again and start again looking at the correct evidence.”

Newly elected Lib Dem Cllr Faron Hadfield-Jones added: “No school should be closed on the basis of outdated costs, disputed maintenance figures or a scheme that has not yet been fully designed, costed and funded.

“Residents should not need solicitors to obtain information that ought to have been included from the beginning. Before irreversible decisions are taken, the public deserve clear evidence that the proposal is viable and genuinely in the best interests of children.”

Claire Homard, Chief Officer for Education and Youth, said: “We are aware that correspondence from solicitors acting on behalf of a school has been shared with the media.

“As this is a legal matter, it would not be appropriate for the council to conduct discussions or debate through the press. We will give careful consideration to the points raised and will respond directly to the solicitors through the proper legal channels.

“The consultation process remains ongoing and we remain committed to ensuring that all views submitted as part of that process are considered fairly and thoroughly.

“We welcome feedback from anyone with an interest in the future of the schools.”

The consultation is open until July 29 and can be found on Flintshire Council’s website in the Consultations and Engagement section.

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