In response to the article of June 4, highlighting the plight of 10 local primary schools facing closure by Powys County Council, the authority has chosen to make an attack on the campaign group ‘Save Our Community Schools’, describing its actions as “malicious, wholly inaccurate and misleading”.

To describe the actions of a non-political group of approaching 660 genuinely concerned residents and parents as “malicious” demonstrates the contempt and total lack of empathy the authority appears to have for those of us who dare to exercise our right to challenge them.

If our understanding of the situation is in any way inaccurate, it is only because of the lack of clear information on the proposals presented by PCC and we certainly have nothing to gain from misleading anyone.

I would suggest Cllr Phyl Davies and colleagues should spend their time first apologising to the group for its unjust attack and then addressing genuine concerns and questions with fully transparent explanations and answers, rather than making such an aggressive attack and repeating the same rhetoric time and time again. Those concerns / questions include:

How are residents / parents supposed to fully participate in a consultation process without any information on what the alternative is or where? For example, it was originally stated that the authority were looking at an Area Primary for approximately 350 pupils to cover Llandysilio, Carreghofa, Arddleen and Brynhafren and that a paper would be presented to Cabinet in the Autumn of 2020. However, this is now not happening until autumn 2021. It is very difficult to respond to something if we do not know what the proposals are.

What has the authority done to ensure every resident is aware of and able to participate in the consultation process, especially those without internet access?

In an email I received this week from Craig Williams MP for Montgomeryshire, he stated: “I am working very closely with Russell George MS, Member of the Welsh Parliament for Montgomeryshire on this matter, as this falls within the devolved responsibilities and I have made the point that consultations must be genuine and Powys County Council must ensure that all residents’ views are listened to, before decisions are made, including those residents who do not have access to the internet”.

SOCS would suggest that consultations to date are therefore incomplete / invalid and should be scrapped. Also, whilst public meetings are not compulsory to the process, they are strongly recommended so now that Covid rules have been relaxed, these can and should take place in each community.

Estyn also requires significant improvement in Welsh Medium Education – Instead the authority would be effectively forcing some children from border schools to be denied this right, because they’ll be pushed into schools in Shropshire, including Church in Wales schools thus impacting faith, as well as language.

David Edwards

Save Our Community Schools