After a year-long campaign by Governors and the local community, supported by Cymdeithas yr Iaith, the Cabinet of Carmarthenshire County Council is set to discuss next Monday (5/10) the recommendation to close Ysgol Meidrim, near Sanclêr, which is on the Government’s list of rural schools for which there is a presumption against closure.
As the agenda for the meeting was published today on the Council’s website, Cymdeithas yr Iaith in Carmarthenshire said that it is likely that the substantive decision was already taken in a meeting behind closed doors last week, and all that remains is to go through the motions and the ritual public show of hands at the formal public meeting of the Cabinet on Monday.
On behalf of Cymdeithas members in Carmarthenshire, Ffred Ffransis explained:
“It is such a disappointment to learn that the Cabinet has rejected the path of co-operation with the Governors and local community who have worked so hard during the last year both to further improve educational standards and to draw up a detailed and ambitious plan to establish, adjacent to the school site, a Community Hub which would include childcare, training and community activities in an integrated Welsh-medium Regeneration Centre. The Governors drew up a detailed plan which identified extra sources of income both to establish and to run the centre.
“It appears, however, that the Council has chosen rather the simple option of writing off the school and the community, viewing such schools as problems rather than as assets. Even more disappointing is the fact that members of the Cabinet have consistently refused to speak to parents whose children’s education they are disrupting and whose community they are writing off. The councillors rely instead solely on reports summarising all the evidence, views and plans of governors and the community. And the recommendation is to write off the school and community for an estimated saving of £13,000 after subtracting extra transport costs.”
Mr Ffransis added:
“Worse still we understand that such a far-reaching decision, affecting people’s lives, will have been effectively taken at a meeting held behind closed doors almost a fortnight before the official public Cabinet meeting. These meetings are called ‘Pre-Cabinet meetings’ and are attended by all Cabinet members and officers, and this is where the substantive discussions take place and recommendations are drawn up – all out of the scrutiny of the public and the press and with no publicly-available minutes. This is where a school and community are written off into the history books, and all that remains is then to go through the motions and take the formal decision at the Cabinet meeting next week. It is heartbreaking to see a Welsh-speaking community written off in this way.”
Unless there is a change of heart at the Cabinet meeting, the motion to close Ysgol Meidrim will then be sent to the full Council meeting for a final decision on 14 October.
Cymdeithas yr Iaith’s final message to that meeting will be:
“The Council’s own Consultation Paper showed that under normal circumstances there would be almost 40 pupils at Ysgol Meidrim in January 2028. If Meidrim is to close, then 20 other Welsh-medium rural schools in Carmarthenshire are immediately under threat, and that will be the end of our Welsh-speaking rural communities.”
