School Mergers and Closures

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 2:26 pm on 25 April 2018.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 2:26, 25 April 2018

Rhun, it really is a matter for the local authority in Ynys Môn to plan their school places, but let me be absolutely clear: any application under the twenty-first century schools programme for capital moneys is judged on a criteria, is examined by an external board to Welsh Government, with independent people looking at the value behind that individual application, and I'm not aware of applications being predicated on a need to close schools otherwise. With regard to the availability of the twenty-first century schools programme to build new schools, the programme is available for school refurbishment of an existing site, replacement schools, as well as newly constituted schools, and there are examples across Wales of all three, where the money is being used to refurbish an existing school, to replace an existing school building, or in some cases—and I was in Anglesey opening some of them recently—where there has been an amalgamation of schools, to create an area school with new facilities.