Community “betrayed” by council decision to close school

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Following yesterday’s rant by a Welshpool county councillor about missing cabinet members for a crucial meeting that decided to close a village primary school, the representative for the community in question has said his constituents feel “betrayed”.

Cllr Graham Breeze blasted the no-shows in a MyWelshpool article yesterday, and now Cllr Aled Davies, the Conservative group leader who represents Llansilin, has also taken aim at the no-shows, which included newly installed council leader Jake Berriman.

At yesterday’s meeting, senior councillors received the objections report on the proposal to close the 25-pupil Ysgol Bro Cynllaith in Llansilin, which is the final stage in the closure process.

Cllr Davies said: “At the last meeting to discuss Ysgol Bro Cynllaith, a third of the cabinet was missing. Today is the final meeting to discuss the future of Bro Cynllaith and half the cabinet including the leader are missing.

“There were a number of opportunities to meet with the community, the school governors and headteacher and only one of the 10 cabinet members could be bothered to come.

“It’s not acceptable – it’s important that cabinet are seen to reach out to the community.

“They are feeling betrayed and clearly the cabinet has no interest in the north of Powys.”

He pointed out that the Cllr Berriman (Liberal Democrat) lives 51 miles away and other cabinet members live well over 100 miles away from Llansilin.

Cllr Davies said: “There’s one member of the cabinet from Montgomeryshire (Cllr Richard Church) when it has 40% of the Powys population.”

Cllr Davies added that “serious alternative proposals” to closure had not been considered.

Cabinet member for education, Cllr Pete Roberts (Liberal Democrat), explained that on the day of a meeting arranged by Cllr Davies for the whole village, he had been down at a meeting with the Minister for Education in Cardiff.

Cllr Roberts said: “You arranged that without actually informing cabinet members you wanted there that it was happening.

“The travel time for me to Cardiff is an hour and 50 minutes, the travel time from Cardiff to Llansilin is between three and a half and four hours.

“The civil service guidance is that anyone attending a meeting should not be driving for more than six hours in that day.

“If you had shown the courtesy of inviting me I would have made every attempt to be there, but you chose not to, so I will not be lectured by you.”

Cllr Roberts added: “This proposal has been enacted in exactly the same way as has been done on previous closure proposals that have been through judicial review.”

Eventually the meeting went to a vote and cabinet unanimously decided to close the school on August 31.