PLANS to close three small rural primary school in northern Powys could yet be replaced by new proposals, which must be produced by March.

Powys Council's cabinet is expected to call a halt to plans to close the Church in Wales schools of Llanfechain, and Llangedwyn and Ysgol Bro Cynllaith primary school in Llansilin on Tuesday.

It comes after plans to add classes at Llansantffraid Church in Wales primary school could “not proceed” due to the outcome of a feasibility study by Heart of Wales Property Services, meaning pupils could not be transferred there from the other schools.

The report will be back in front of the cabinet next Tuesday, December 21  with a new third part to the recommendation, after it was withdrawn from cabinet this week.

The report has now been amended to say that new plans for the schools' futures must come forward by March 2022.

The addition reads: “To instruct the Transforming Education Team to bring forward proposals for Ysgol Bro Cynllaith, Llangedwyn C. in W. School and Llanfechain C. in W. School by March 2022 due to the low and reducing pupil numbers and the potential impact on the sustainability of the schools and the learner offer.

“Discussions with stakeholders will commence immediately at the start of the new term (January 2022).”

The withdrawal of the report this week was “totally unacceptable” to Chris Richards, the chairman of school governors at Llangedwyn and Llanfechain.

Mr Chris Richards said: “We had advance notice of the report.

“We wrote to our staff and parents telling them it would go to cabinet and what the recommendation was.”

He added that the first he knew that the report had been pulled was from looking at social media platform Twitter.

“I have asked the authority for an urgent explanation,” said Mr Richards.

A spokesman for Powys County Council said: “Cabinet had a few concerns with the report that was previously published, and amendments have been made to the recommendations.”