A THREATENED primary school will remain open for a further 12-months, after plans for a new £2.5million school elsewhere were approved by Powys County Council.
Howey Church in Wales School has been given a temporary reprieve by the council's board after plans for a new state-of-the-art primary school building in Newbridge-on-Wye got the go ahead.
With pupils in Newbridge set to be housed in temporary cl
assrooms for a year while building work is on-going, the council's executive director of people and well-being, Phil Robson, has announced Howey School will remain open until the end of summer 2009.
Following Tuesday's council board meeting, Mr Robson sent a letter to councillors, stating: "Because of the time scale involved in the building works and the need to give parents notice about changes to arrangements, it would not now be possible for the minister to consider an implementation date of September 1, 2008.
"We are therefore informing you that the pupils currently at Howey will remain there until the end of summer term in 2009."
The news has angered Llandrindod Wells county councillor, Gary Price.
He said: "Obviously I am disappointed that the board decided to close Howey in the first place. However it is more disappointing the goal posts are being moved again by the council, with little transparency and respect to the parents, children and the community.
"I would go a far as to say they have been ridden roughshod over and this goes to show that with the extra £1m found for Newbridge School and the extra year of keeping Howey open, it would have been better if the council had invested the £1m into Howey, meaning that it could remain open."
But Mr Robson said the work at Newbridge would have gone ahead regardless of whether Howey School was set to close or not.
At the board meeting he said: "The fact is Newbridge needed a refurbishment or new building regardless of what decision is taken with the possible closure of Howey School.
"This will be the first in a series of school modernisation projects in the county and many more projects will come over the next few years, all over the county."
Cllr David Jones added: "It is the future of education in Powys and it will be the kind of facility the staff and pupils in the area deserve."
The council says the new building will serve the community for the next 60 years, with building work planned to commence later this year.
The new school building will incorporate the community hall into the design to provide an integrated community facility.
The full article contains 448 words and appears in County Times Gazette newspaper.
