Conwy Valley schools start campaigns over proposed closures

Jun 24 2010 by Samantha Castle, North Wales Weekly News

Conwy Valley schools start campaigns over proposed closures

PARENTS staged a protest in support of Ysgol Tal-y-Bont on Wednesday morning.

The small Conwy Valley school is one of three – along with Rowen and Trefriw – which would close and merge with Ysgol Dolgarrog before 2012 under the council’s preferred plans.

The protest came after the setting-up of various local campaigns and online petitions to fight the Caerhun area merger.

Mum of five-year-old twins Cheryl Parry is the brains behind the Save Ysgol Tal-y-Bont campaign. She said the group will fight to save their village school.

“Ysgol Tal-y-Bont is central to all community life here. If we lose the school we not only lose another popular rural service, but a community hub for children, their families and the whole community,” she said.

The school, like many of its rural counterparts, relies on fundraising to help provide extra-curricular activities and, according to the campaigners, it is through these out-of-school events and activities that the community comes together.

Cheryl added: “I’ve lived here for five years and for all that time the school has been central to village events, from Christmas concerts to summer fairs to daffodil planting on the playing field.

“The school also provides regular free hot meals to around 10 pensioners who have lived in the village all their lives.

“When we say the school is an integral part of village life, and without it we would have nothing – we mean exactly that!

“We feel it is unfair that a lot of the consultation process takes place during the summer break. We will be setting up discussion groups and a petition on Facebook before we attend the local authority public meeting in July.”

Pensioner Celia Williams, 86, will join the fight: “Generations of families have attended Ysgol Tal-y-Bont, including my father, my daughter and my 90-year-old friend. The school does so much for the community. To lose it would be devastating for the village.”