Comment from Cllr Iain Mcintosh
Following the recent news that the application for judicial review was rejected by the Courts, I wrote to the Welsh Education Minister, Jeremy Miles MS, inviting to come to Cradoc Primary School and hear about the very serious concerns we have about this decision, the ramifications for other Welsh rural primary schools, and the effect this is going to have on our local community.
The court didn’t think the fact Powys County Council deliberately misled the public by insisting Cradoc Primary School can hold 175 pupils and used this statistic to imply the school was heavily under subscribed mattered. I corrected the Council by informing them the accurate figure is 143 pupils but they refused to acknowledge this.
The Council also refer to our school as a ‘small school’, and they insist the school has consistently been under the benchmark figure of 91 pupils to be classed as such for the last four years. Again, this is not true, our school has consistently been over 91 pupils, it is not a small school.
The previous Welsh Education Minister claimed the additional protection she added to Welsh Government’s School Organisation Code, to protect rural schools, was her biggest achievement, yet it has failed to protect a popular rural school less than a mile from her own home. The code has no legal standing and, in the words of the solicitors acting on our behalf, ‘it isn’t worth the paper it is written on’.
As Welsh local authorities are struggling to keep schools open, and as the added presumption against closure of rural primary schools in the School Organisation Code is useless, this will cause serious concern for rural schools throughout Wales facing the threat of closure.
Jeremy Miles MS needs to be aware of the concerns myself and the community have about this. The School Organisation Code needs to be rewritten and must be strengthened to make sure local authorities follow it without any ambiguity or deliberate misinterpretation. I also want to make the Minister aware of the threat to other schools and raise other areas where Powys County Council have not followed the code.
Unfortunately, Jeremy Miles MS has refused to come and meet with me and our community. He claims it’s too late for him to get involved, but as the code only says; "Within 28 days of the local authority’s determination proposals may be referred to Welsh Ministers.”, it does not exclude calling in this decision after 28 days. The minister really must come and take a look at this case. Is he really content to see a well loved school like Cradoc Primary close like this under his watch?”
Cllr Iain Mcintosh
