PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL has accepted an insurance settlement which leaves it with just £63,777.07 after the catastrophic fire which destroyed Manorbier School.

The figure, confirmed in a director’s decision notice dated Tuesday (Jun 23), is likely to appal parents, taxpayers and campaigners who have fought to save the village school.

The council accepted the insurer’s full and final settlement offer of £263,777.07.

But after a £200,000 excess was deducted, the net payment to the authority was only £63,777.07.

The fire broke out on October 10, 2022, during roofing works at the school. The council’s own document states that the blaze followed the use of flame torches and caused extensive damage to the original school building and adjoining schoolhouse, destroying the pitched roof structures.

Nearly four years later, the school has been discontinued, the building has not been rebuilt, and the insurance payout left to the council is less than the price of many family homes in Pembrokeshire.

The revelation raises devastating questions about how a public building used by young children could be left so exposed.

It also raises wider concerns about whether other schools and council-owned public buildings in Pembrokeshire are properly insured against catastrophic loss.

Council leader calls for review

Council leader Cllr Tessa Hodgson has now written to Dr Norma Barry, chair of the Governance and Audit Committee, formally requesting a wider review of the authority’s insurance arrangements.

In her letter, Cllr Hodgson said it was “difficult to explain and to understand” how there could be such a wide gap between the value of the damage to the asset and the value of the settlement figure.

She asked the committee to undertake a “formal, thorough and more general review” to provide assurance that insurance arrangements across the authority are “fit for purpose and robust”.

That request will now place the council’s insurance policies, risk management and decision-making under intense scrutiny.

Church dispute

The issue is made even more explosive by the fact that Manorbier School is a Church in Wales voluntary controlled school.

The Church has previously made clear that it expects the building to be reinstated, and solicitors acting for the Diocese have already accused the council of using the school closure process to avoid responsibility for rebuilding the fire-damaged premises.

The Diocese has demanded full structural reinstatement and has warned that legal action, including judicial review, could follow.

If the Church continues to insist that the school must be returned to its pre-fire condition, the council could yet face a much larger bill than the £63,777.07 it will receive from the insurer.

Contractor questions

There are also unanswered questions about the roofing contractor working at the site when the fire broke out.

The council document states that the fire occurred during roofing works following the use of flame torches.

Former Schools Overview and Scrutiny Committee chair Cllr Huw Murphy has questioned where the contractor’s public liability insurance was, and why the consequences of the fire appear to have fallen back on the council.

He said there were “serious concerns” over the lack of insurance cover in place for such a catastrophic incident.

Cllr Murphy said the fire not only rendered the school unusable, but also destroyed an attached schoolhouse, leaving a tenant requiring rehousing by the local authority.

He said: “If there was a template on how not to deal with a catastrophic incident then Pembrokeshire wrote it for Manorbier.”

Wider public concern

The Manorbier case now raises a stark question for every parent in Pembrokeshire: if another school suffered a major fire tomorrow, would the council be able to rebuild it?

A large insurance excess may not be unusual for a local authority, but residents will want to know whether the council had the right cover, the right reserves, and the right legal protections in place.

Had Manorbier School been rebuilt, Pembrokeshire would at least have retained a valuable public asset capable of serving future generations.

Instead, the community has lost its school, the building remains unrestored, and the council is left with a net insurance payment of just £63,777.07.

The Herald has asked Pembrokeshire County Council whether all school buildings are insured for full reinstatement value, what excesses apply, whether any claim has been pursued against the contractor or its insurers, and what legal advice has been received in relation to the Church in Wales’ position.

CHURCH education in Pembrokeshire, the birthplace of Wales’s Patron Saint, is under threat from a series of actions by the council which could amount to religious discrimination, the Church in Wales has said.

The Church in Wales has issued a formal notice that it will take legal action against Pembrokeshire County Council if it presses ahead with plans to remove church status from Cilgerran Voluntary Controlled Primary School.

Back in May, the council voted to remove the Voluntary Controlled status of the Welsh-speaking rural school and to establish it as a 3-11 community school despite 97 per cent of the responses to a consultation about its potential discontinuation opposing it.

That consultation followed a review which “considered the extent of surplus school places in the area, set against a significant decline in the pupil population,” the council has previously said.

Hundreds opposed the proposed changes, with a petition on the council’s own website gaining 391 signatures.

During the consultation, 203 responses were received; 97 per cent (197 responses) against the proposal, with just 1.5 per cent (three) in favour.

Earlier this year, councillors heard from vice-chair of the school governors Gary Fieldhouse who said the loss of the Church in Wales status would be “a profound mistake,” the school’s association with the church “not symbolic but fundamental”.

Reverend John Cecil had told councillors the proposals were “fundamentally flawed,” with the school’s land legally in trust as a Church of Wales school, and change “essentially creating a new school with no premises to occupy”.

A letter has now been sent to council officers on behalf of the Diocese of St Davids and the Church in Wales saying that, if the council persists with this course, the Church will take legal action on the grounds of claims of “public misrepresentation and unqualified legal assertions made by Pembrokeshire County Council officers,” and “discrimination against faith schooling”.

The letter also says that, if the council removes VC status from the school, the Church will not make the site available for a successor school, which it says will render “the case on which the proposed removal of VC status is based untenable”.

The legal warning follows Pembrokeshire County Council’s decision earlier this month to close Manorbier Church in Wales Voluntary Controlled School, which was damaged by a fire in 2022.

The church says that despite repeated assurances from Cabinet Members and senior officers that it would be rebuilt, it has been allowed to sit empty while the number of children, forced for years to learn in temporary accommodation, has declined.

A spokesperson for the Church in Wales said: “Pembrokeshire County Council’s behaviour in the case of Manorbier VC School has been utterly unconscionable.

“The council has presided over a catalogue of delay, incompetence and broken promises resulting in the literal destruction of a thriving school which has served its community for more than 150 years.

“Taken together with the gratuitous attack on the church status of Ysgol Cilgerran, this amounts to a targeted assault on the inclusive Christian education which Church in Wales schools have provided to their communities for generations.

“That the council should be pursuing this potentially discriminatory action against Church schools in the county which is the cradle of Christianity in Wales, and which takes pride in being the birthplace and shrine of our nation’s Patron Saint, is a bitter irony.

“We are not prepared to allow it to happen, and we look to the county’s elected representatives to halt this destructive course of action.”

Pembrokeshire County Council has been contacted for a response.

A NEW town map has been installed in the heart of Fishguard to help residents and visitors discover more of what the area has to offer.

The map, created by Visit Fishguard & Goodwick’s in-house graphic designer, has been placed on the Abergwaun Hotel tunnel, near Offshore Surfwear’s new shop.

The group said it was “incredibly proud” of the finished result and thanked the building owner for allowing the map to be installed on the premises.

Visit Fishguard & Goodwick is now hoping to create a similar map for Goodwick and is asking for help from a centrally located building owner who may be willing to host it.

Anyone who can help, or knows of a suitable location, is being asked to get in touch with Visit Fishguard & Goodwick.