THE PREFERRED location for a new 3 to 16 Catholic school in Merthyr Tydfil is now the current Bishop Hedley High School site.

A report to a special full council meeting on Wednesday, March 16 recommends building the new 3 to 16 school on the current Bishop Hedley site  with a school sports pitch provided on Plateau two of the Buttercup Fields at a cost of nearly £48m.

It follows several consultations on where to build the new school after the community voiced its opposition to building on The Greenie playing fields or the Buttercup Fields.

The total cost of the Bishop Hedley project would be £47.9m with £40.35m coming from Welsh Government and £7.55m from the council.

If approved the council would submit a business case to Welsh Government to approve the site selected in principle and and the extra funding needed.

The new school would open across the current school sites this September with the aim being to open the new building in September 2026.

Land south of the ‘Greenie’, west of Galon Uchaf Road and the current BHHS upper and lower sites were first put forward for consultation in November 2020 as potential site options.

In January 2021, after reviewing the consultation responses, the land
south of the ‘Greenie’, west of Galon Uchaf Road was approved as the preferred site for the new 3-16 school.

After works to find the best solutions for the site of the school building, traffic management, drop-off/parking and sports facilities, alternative options for the location of the school were put forward and put out for further consultation.

They included the Buttercup Fields and The Greenie and in May 2021, after considering the consultation, cabinet approved moving the proposal for The Greenie to the next stage of development.

But in July 2021, after concerns were raised on social media that a large number of residents were not aware of the public consultation, the consultation was extended.

In December 2021, council were presented with the extended consultation
results, where 68.5% of respondents said that they would not like the 3-16 school to be built on either of the two options, the Buttercup Fields or The Greenie.

Alternative sites were suggested as part of the consultation
feedback but the report to council explained that it was not feasible to build the 3-16 school on any of the suggested alternative sites, except for the current Bishop Hedley High School site (BHHS).

A study was carried out on the current BHHS site to show the costs, programme, risks and if building a 3-16 school on the site was feasible.

The outcome was that building a 3-16 school on the existing BHHS was feasible with the creation of a school rugby field on the Buttercup Fields to create sufficient sporting facilities for the curriculum

The report to council compared the site options (option one for the Buttercup Fields and option two for The Greenie) from the consultation with the BHHS feasibility to decide which options should be taken forward.

After more investigations, option 1 for the Buttercup Fields was indicated as “sub-optimal” with significant risks to its viability.

This option, which was also the least popular of the two options consulted upon, was to no longer be considered.

Because of the strength of feeling from the local community about the risks arising from the loss of the green open space known as ‘the Greenie’ further mitigation was proposed in order to provide an option to develop the Greenie to meet the community’s needs and seek public support if possible, the report said.

A revised option for The Greenie was proposed and it was decided that the revised Option 2 for The Greenie and the new BHHS site option were viable options for building the 3-16 school and that an additional public consultation should be done.

Following the latest consultation which took place in January and February, just over 92% of the local community said they preferred the Bishop Hedley option with just under 52% of the school community preferring The Greenie option.

This means that overall, just over 80% of those who responded favoured the Bishop Hedley option.

The council’s appraisal shows that the Bishop Hedley site has an overall higher rating and lower risk rating than The Greenie option.

When it assessed the impact of disposing of the playing field, the council said The Greenie option would have a negative impact on the Cwm Taf Wellbeing Plan and the Bishop Hedley option would have a positive impact.

Some suggested that the school should be built elsewhere including Goat Mill Road, the old British Steel site (Ivor Works Dowlais), Heartlands and Trago Mills.

But the council response for Goat Mill Road was that it is allocated for employment use in the Local Development Plan (LDP) and the potential occupier has carried out pre-application consultation, with the planning application anticipated shortly.

For the Old British Steel site, the council said the site is allocated for a residential led mixed use development in the LDP.

It said the proposed 3-16 school would require the majority of the site, which would result in the development of the site not being in accordance with the LDP.

For Heartlands, the council said the 3-16 school would require the majority of the site, (including land on both plateaus) and the land is allocated for ‘residential led mixed-use development’ in the LDP.

And for Trago Mills it said the land is currently under private ownership.

It said the vacant areas that form part of the Trago Mills site consist of five separate plateaus and that no individual plateau (or combination of plateaus) is large enough to accommodate the 3-16 school.