Cabinet to discuss plans to replace Mynydd Cynffig Primary School with new build under revised Band B programme

Bridgend County Borough Council’s cabinet will discuss next week plans to replace Mynydd Cynffig Primary School in Kenfig Hill with a new build.

In a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, June 30, members will be asked to approve plans to submit a revised Band B scheme under the second wave of the Welsh Government’s 21^st Century Schools and Colleges Programme. 

It is proposed that the new Mynydd Cynffig Primary School will be designed as a two form entry school plus nursery.

The development plans for a replacement school on a site in the area would be subject to an options appraisal and feasibility study, which will inform the Welsh Government business case process.

The proposal for the revised Band B submission would substitute the existing scheme in the Bridgend South East area of the county borough – at Parc Afon Ewenni, a 20-acre development site in Coychurch Lower, Bridgend.

In January, cabinet approved a feasibility study to deliver a dual-stream, Welsh and English-medium primary school at Parc Afon Ewenni. However, as it is intrinsically linked to the development of the wider residential site, a school there is no longer considered to be deliverable within the Band B period.

A replacement Mynydd Cynffig Primary School had initially been earmarked as a priority scheme for Bridgend for Band C of the 21^st Century Schools and Colleges Programme.    

However, a school building condition survey which followed extensive damage caused by a burst pipe on the infants site concluded that the wider repair works to the building would be “extremely challenging and economically unfeasible”. As a result, the local authority is

looking to bring forward its replacement new build.

Over the last few months, before the lockdown, infant pupils at Mynydd Cynffig Primary School were being transported to Corneli Primary School, Ysgol Y Ferch O’r Sgêr and the Integrated Children’s Centre daily to receive their education.

Bridgend County Borough Council recently committed £1.2m for the provision of new modular classrooms which would enable the school’s infant pupils to be educated on site until the new school is built. 

If the Parc Afon Ewenni site is included in the new Local Development Plan, a school on the site could be delivered under Band C of the programme.

The report will be discussed by cabinet members on June 30.