Uncertainty over future development of Welsh medium school

Twm Owen Local Democracy Reporter

Uncertainty is growing over the future location of a recently opened Welsh medium based at an established primary school.

Ysgol Gymraeg Trefynwy opened as a seedling school, with the intention of it growing by a class every year, in September 2024 at the existing Overmonnow Primary which remains open as an English medium school in Monmouth.

Monmouthshire County Council had also put forward plans to expand the provision at the school as numbers grow.

But at a scrutiny committee meeting its director of education Will McLean said planned work to expand the provision for Ysgol Gymraeg Trefynwy could no longer take place at the site.

Last year a row erupted when the council denied it has put forward plans to close the Kymin View primary in Wyesham and move Ysgol Trefynwy into its building. It said proposals on addressing empty places in the area’s schools had been discussed but no proposals put forward and the councillor responsible, Labour’s Laura Wright, ruled out school closures.

At the most recent scrutiny committee director of education Mr McLean was questioned about a £2.68 million figure for a “Welsh medium school and nursery” in an appendix to a report setting out details of council budgets for the 2025/26 financial year by Monmouth Labour councillor Steven Garratt.

The Overmonnow member asked if the money was still available and in the council’s control and “whether that’s money that’s still available either for development of that school or a new site?”

Mr McLean said the figure was in the capital, or one off investment, budget but couldn’t ultimately be spent after it was discovered work couldn’t take place at Overmonnow School.

He said: “That money that was allocated for the initial programmes of work around Overmonnow and Ysgol Trefynwy in Monmouth.

“Because of issues of very challenging discoveries on the site itself that programme of work is not going to proceed on that area.

“We’re in conversations with the Welsh Government’s Welsh medium division about how we can support that school going forward and that will be subject to a further capital bid to Welsh Government in the future.”