Funding concerns over schools plan
WORK has begun on a £68.2m wave of modernisation for schools in one South Wales local authority.
The programme, in Bridgend, has yet to name individual schools but has identified five priority areas: Bridgend North East, Bridgend South East, Bridgend Special School, Bridgend West Welsh medium, and Bridgend West English medium.
The project, called “Band B” of the school modernisation programme, will run from next year to 2024.
It aims to deal with issues such as meeting demand arising from current housing developments, including the planned Brackla North East development, overcrowding in Heronsbridge Special School and increasing Welshmedium provision in the county.
Interim education director Lindsay Harvey said: “We are very early days in this, this isn’t a definitive list.”
Councillors raised a number of concerns and questioned whether the council could afford the planned costs.
For the majority of the projects, the Welsh Government is providing 50% of the funding, with the council expected to provide the remaining amount.
However, for the Bridgend Special School scheme, a Mutual Investment Model is being used which could see the Welsh Government provide 75% of the project costs with the council paying £750,000 every year for 25 years.
Councillor Lyn Walters said: “We have to assume all of the funding the council is putting in would be unsupported borrowing – at this moment in time that would be a £1.1m repayment each year.
“On top of that, under the proposed model for the Bridgend Special School scheme, the council would be required to pay around £750,000 a year for 25 years. We are looking at a potential nearly £2m impact on the authority. If that hasn’t been built into the medium-term financial strategy that will have an impact across all areas of the council, unless there is a way that education can balance its budget to cover that £2m, which I think is highly unlikely.” Other concerns highlighted by councillors involved the schools which did not form part of the modernisation programme.
Councillor Keith Edwards said: “The new schools we build are only a small percentage of schools we have across the borough, there are many old schools. In the interim period while we have to wait for these schools to become part of later bands of modernisation, they continue to deteriorate.
“How do we continue to fund improvements in these schools when we seem to be spending all the money on this project?”
Councillor Nicole Burnett pointed out that when considering the number of school places required in the county, officers should not just be looking at new housing developments but the changes in demographic within Bridgend town centre.
She said: “Families are starting to move back in, you’ve potentially got the equivalent of hundreds of new houses coming back into play – they’re not being built, but are being reused for families.”