Parents turn to courts to save school
ACOUNCIL faces court action over its decision to close a school in what promises to be the first time the Welsh Government’s Well-being of Future Generations Act is tested.
Solicitors acting for parents fighting to save Cymer Afan Comprehensive in the Upper Afan Valley have served Neath Port Talbot Council with notice they have applied for a judicial review.
The council must respond before Christmas and a judge will decide whether a judicial review can go ahead in the next few weeks.
Public law expert and solicitor Michael Imperato, acting for parents, said whatever the outcome of a review – if a judge agrees one should be held – the case would be significant for public bodies, parents and other service users across Wales as it will test the 2015 Act for the first time.
The council is proposing Cymer Afan pupils move to the £30m new-build Ysgol Cwm Brombil in Margam – which opened this September – from September 2019.
But Mr Imperato argues Neath Port Talbot Council did not take a longterm view, as required by the Act, when it decided to close Cymer Afan Comprehensive and move pupils to Brombil – an hour’s drive away for some at the bottom of the valley.
The Act means that, for the first time, public bodies listed in it must act in a sustainable way, think more about the long term and work better with people, communities and each other.
Opponents say closing Cymer Afan will “rip the heart from the valley”, but the council says it has falling numbers and needs millions of pounds of repairs.
Mr Imperato, partner and head of public administration law at Watkins & Gunn solicitors in Cardiff, said closing its secondary school will lead to depopulation in the valley.
“The Future Generations Act relates to everything in the public sector and how public bodies should be approaching decisions with the Act in mind,” he said.
“On one level, we are saying when the council made that decision they did not make that decision through the lens of the Act. They mention it in passing but can’t demonstrate they had it in the forefront of their minds
“The Act talks about how it impacts on generations 10-25 years away. We are saying there is no evidence the council looked at that.”
Peter Rees, Neath Port Talbot Council’s cabinet member for education, skills and culture, said: “The local authority is currently responding to an application that has been made seeking permission to apply for a judicial review. Should this be granted, we will rigorously defend the authority’s actions in this matter.
“We believe that the decision to close Cymer Afan Comprehensive School was correct and we are now committed to supporting secondaryaged pupils from the upper Afan Valley to access their learning from September 2019 at the newly opened facilities at Ysgol Cwm Brombil.”
Council leader Rob Jones said: “The decision to close Cymer Afan is not money-related. It is looking to provide a 21st-century building as a way of dealing with falling numbers of pupils. At Cymer Afan we have a school built for 650 with 229 pupils.
“It’s not unprecedented for a school in the Valleys to close. We can’t be held responsible for the decline in the population... I have to think of the longterm education of pupils.”