£16m Llangefni schools revamp approved by councillors

A £16m schools reorganisation plan on Anglesey will now go ahead after it received unanimous backing from councillors.

The plans will see the “not fit for purpose” Ysgol Corn Hir in Llangefni knocked down with a new school built near the existing site.

The Ysgol y Graig school site will also be expanded as part of the project.

However, Ysgol Gynradd y Talwrn will close as part of the reorganisation. Shutting the 36-pupil school will take place during the 2022/23 academic year once the new block is built at Ysgol y Graig, increasing the latter’s capacity to accomodate 480 pupils.

Closing the 69-pupil Ysgol Gymuned Bodffordd was originally part of the Ysgol Corn Hir proposals however those plans were eventually scrapped.

Speaking to Anglesey Council’s corporate scrutiny committee on Thursday, the chair of Ysgol Corn Hir’s board of governors painted a bleak picture of the current facilities on offer and the need for a new building, claiming some classrooms were suffering from leaking roofs and “hardly suitable for the educational demands of today, let alone tomorrow.”

Mr Dafydd Jones added that the school has had to turn away some pupils as it is already over capacity and said that it posed health and safety concerns “with children tripping over each other.”

Mr Gareth Parry, a governor at Ysgol Gymuned Bodffordd, said they had never opposed a new building for Ysgol Corn Hir but welcomed the fact that it would go ahead “without sacrificing Bodffordd in the process.”

Meeting later in the day, the council’s decision making executive voted unanimously to press on with the proposals for Ysgol Corn Hir and y Graig, with the Welsh Government expected to fund half of the approximately £16m cost.

Education portfolio holder, Cllr Meirion Jones, stressed that the main driver for the plans was the children’s education and ensuring the best possible facilities, but that it was “not necessarily the role of the education department to maintain the community.”

This is despite the efforts of campaigners in Talwrn who fought unsuccessfully to save their village school, with Mr Robat Idris Davies recently urging councillors to consider the impact on village life.

Mr Davies also described the timing of the process during a pandemic as “unfair,” with “the stress” having already resulted in families moving their children to other schools.
Cllr Bob Parry said that while many parents had originally opposed school reorganisation, many had later embraced it due to the better facilities.

“There’s something wrong when so many parents in Talwrn are sending their children to other schools, although there are also children from other areas attending Talwrn,” added Cllr Parry.

“Its hard to propose closing a school but when you take the figures and what’s best for the children into account, I have to back reorganisation when considering what’s happened elsewhere such as Ysgol Rhyd y Llan, despite myself having attended a small village school in Llanddeusant.

“More Welsh is spoken at Ysgol y Graig than Talwrn, and from the dozen emails I’ve received from the village over the past week only two were in Welsh, which has shocked me considering its a rural village.”

Members of the Executive unanimously backed forging ahead with both projects, which in the new year will trigger a statutory notice period over the closure of Ysgol Talwrn.

By Gareth Williams – Local Democracy Reporter