Special school decision expected imminently

Richard Youle, local democracy reporter

A decision on plans for a long-awaited new special school could finally be made this month.

Carmarthenshire Council’s cabinet member for education and Welsh language, Cllr Glynog Davies, said he intended to bring forward a “definitive proposal” to colleagues at a meeting on July 31.

Cabinet previously supported two options to replace oversubscribed Ysgol Heol Goffa but wanted to know more about costs and design feasibility work.

Cllr Davies, of Plaid Cymru, told a meeting of full council on July 23 that a lot of work has now been done on this.

He had been asked by Labour opposition leader Cllr Deryk Cundy to give parents peace of mind by saying when the “promised state-of-the-art” replacement school would be ready for pupils, given that it had been eight years since the previous Plaid leader had said one would be built.

Shelved

A replacement school was agreed but the plans were shelved last year due to soaring costs.

Cllr Davies said the authority continued to liaise with the Ysgol Heol Goffa community, and added that the replacement school which had initially been proposed “would be full even before the doors opened” had it been built.

He said: “What’s important here is that I’m very close to coming to a decision. My intention and my hope is to make a definitive proposal to the cabinet on the last day of the month, July 31.

“It is imminent, and that is good news for us all in this chamber.”

Cllr Cundy said he didn’t feel Cllr Davies had answered the question he’d asked and that parents were desperate to know what was going on.

Cllr Davies said he believed he did the answer the question. He said the matter had to go before cabinet, and that this was imminent.

Options

At a meeting in June, cabinet discounted four of six options that had been resulted from an independent review of specialist education in the Llanelli area.

The two options favoured are a 150-place school, along with a primary and secondary specialist centre for pupils with autistic spectrum conditions attached to mainstream schools, or a new 250-place school which would include provision for pupils with autistic spectrum conditions. The latter option is preferred by Ysgol Heol Goffa.

Estimates for the 150-place option range from £42.2 million to £58.1 million; estimates for the 250-place option range from £36.2 million to £51.2 million. The Welsh Government would fund the majority of the costs.

There had been an outcry and protests when plans for the previously approved replacement school, at Llanelli’s former Draka copperworks site, were dropped.

A campaign group called Ysgol Heol Goffa Action Committee wrote to the council after the independent review was published earlier this year saying: “Time is of the essence here; parents do not want to be waiting another five years plus, for the new school. We agree that the school can be delivered in a more cost-effective manner, while also increasing pupil capacity to address the ever-growing need.”