Views sought on new £22m school
A NEW primary school and swimming pool for more than 750 pupils could be built in Pontardawe by 2024 after councillors approved the latest stage of a consultation.
Neath Port Talbot Council has allowed further discussions to take place regarding the development of a new swimming pool and Englishmedium primary school to replace three existing schools.
The council’s head of transformation, Andrew Thomas, said: “If this does go ahead it would be the largest primary school in Neath Port Talbot by some considerable distance.
“One of the benefits of this is that the pupils from the secondary and the new primary school can make daily use of the leisure facilities.”
During a meeting held on Wednesday, councillors discussed a proposal to replace Alltwen, Godre’rgraig and Llangiwg primary schools with an English-medium school for pupils aged three to 11.
If the development is eventually approved, a new English-medium primary school would be built for 630 full-time pupils and 140 part-time nursery pupils. The existing three primary schools would close on August 31 2024 as a result, with the new school opening in September 2024.
It would also include specialist learning facilities for pupils with learning and behavioural difficulties and a 25-metre, six-lane swimming pool with an additional learner pool for pupils and the wider community.
The new school and pool would cost around £22 million and be jointly funded by the Welsh Government and borrowing. It is proposed that they would be built on councilowned land at Parc Ynysderw, Pontardawe next to Cwmtawe Community School and Pontardawe Leisure Centre.
Plaid Cymru councillor Linet Purcell said the access road to the proposed site passes through a busy retail park and is also used to access the leisure centre and so she was concerned about the highway safety of the site.
Mr Thomas said the council has “extremely rigorous” planning processes which would take place at the planning stage.
He added: “We will not get planning approval unless we significantly improve the traffic management arrangements in that area.
“The great thing about that site is that there is a lot of land there. I’m not saying we’re going to knock Cwmtawe or the leisure centre down but everything else of there is almost up for grabs.
“If this goes ahead we will improve the current situation significantly despite the fact that we’re talking about an additional 770 pupils. Our highways and our planning processes will require us to do that.”
Ms Purcell, who represents Pontardawe, also said she was concerned about how the proposed school would affect access to nursery education in the area and questioned how confident council officers are that the nursery would be widely attended.
“At present I’ve got nursery school children living in the social housing estate in Bethesda Road walking to school. Many families on the estate have either no car or one car which is used to access work.
“I had a call yesterday from a mum of three little boys who walk to Llangiwg everyday with a little sister in the pram. The proposed site is approximately 1.25 miles further on from the estate.”
Mr Thomas said during the informal discussions with stakeholders such concerns were raised.
“The concerns around nursery education were raised. The whole point of consultation is to flesh out the extent of these issues we would need to understand how significant an issue it is for how many people within this proposal. We will identify that from the consultation exercise.”
He added that from past experience with similar projects, the council would “be very confident that that nursery would be full if not oversubscribed”.
As part of the council’s 21st Century Schools Programme, the council considered building a new school for 1,284 three to 16 year-olds. Following discussions with stakeholders – including local ward members for the Swansea Valley area, the AM and MP for Neath and school staff – this was changed to a school for three to 11 year-olds.
Plaid Cymru councillor Rebeca Phillips said she was “very concerned” about the potential impact of the school “on the Welsh language in the Swansea Valley”.
“What we’re basically giving parents is the choice between two run down Welsh language education schools in shabby buildings and this brand new school with a swimming pool. It’s very concerning.”
Mr Thomas said: “We haven’t done an impact assessment yet and we’ll address that when the assessment is done. If there’s a need to address it.”
He also said officers had considered building a new Welsh-medium school in the area under the 21st Century Schools project but decided against it because there is “already sufficient provision in the Swansea Valley for Welshmedium education”.
Currently, there is a total backlog in maintenance costs of over £2 million for all three schools and a total of £1.2 million for Pontardawe Swimming Pool.
In 2019, Godre’rgraig Primary School was temporarily relocated after experts found there was a risk of a potential landslide at the school’s playground.
A report by Mr Thomas stated further work revealed it would be unsafe for pupils and staff to return to the old school site and so building a new school to replace it could be beneficial to pupils and staff.
Councillors voted in favour of a consultation taking place from November until January, when residents will be able to discuss a proposal for the new school.