Criticised: Council leader Jamie Adams

THE HERALD has seen correspondence between the Chair of the Tasker Milward and Picton Charity and Council Leader Jamie Adams that casts doubts on the legality of the Council”s revised proposals for the reorganisation of secondary education in mid and north Pembrokeshire.

The letter, dated September 8, takes Cllr Adams to task over the way the Council appears to have prejudged and predetermined the outcome of any fresh consultation.

Speaking to The Herald last Friday, former Council leader Maurice Hughes said: “It seems to me that talking about consultation with us and then telling parents of children in St Davids that their children will be going to Pembrokeshire College after the age of sixteen, gives the game away about just how much consultation and compromise the Education Department has in mind.”

Demonstrating that the Trustees of the Charity are not prepared to back down, Maurice Hughes” letter reads:

“The Trustees have become aware of the revised proposals (discussed at Council Thursday, September 10) and have taken advice on them. In relation to the proposals for Fishguard and St Davids, one recommendation is that post 16 provision should be in a new sixth form centre as part of a formal collaboration between the County Council and Pembrokeshire College.”

It goes on to point out that proceeding with consultation and publication would represent a predetermination of any subsequent proposals affecting Haverfordwest”s schools, rendering them unlawful. “Any consultation document,” the letter continues, “would itself be in breach of a number of provisions of the statutory code.”

Concluding the letter queries just what mutually satisfactory settlement the council is contemplating if it has already decided where the town”s pupils are to be educated after the age of sixteen.

A further missive was sent to all councillors by the Governors of Tasker Milward and Sir Thomas Picton Secondary Schools.

The letter discloses that a meeting took place between Ian Westley, Kate Evans-Hughes and the chairs of the schools” governining bodies.

It continues: “Various ideas were considered in the hope that a compromise solution could be found to suit all parties.

“Site locations were considered but the main sticking point is that we, the Governors, together with the staff, the pupils, and vast numbers of the local population, require to retain choice of education in the area which in effect means a new 11 – 19 year school in Haverfordwest incorporating a 6th form.”

Citing that the original recommendation of the council’s own specialists (Tribal) was that the 6th form should be run through a secondary school on or near a school site, the letter maintains that the reasoning behind the council’s desire to shuffle sixth formers off to Pembrokeshire College is ‘highly suspect’.

In addition, a new strand of debate is developed. The letter suggests that the Council’s long term plan is to shift all of Pembrokeshire’s sixth form provision to the proposed Pembrokeshire College Centre (which would chime with the original aim to put all post-14 education under the College, as revealed by Council Leader Jamie Adams nearly two years ago).

In relation to that prospect the letter points out: ‘The population of Haverfordwest has been particularly vociferous in its opposition to a 6th form centre and we feel that when it actually dawns on the population of south Pembrokeshire that their schools may suffer the same fate, individuals will at last awake’.

Criticising the local authority for seeking to site a new school on the smaller of the two available sites in Haverfordwest, the letter pours scorn on the proposal its authors say they ‘find it incredulous that this site has been chosen for what will in effect be a much larger school than currently exists on its grounds”.

On a final note, councillors are left in no doubt of the strength of the opposition to its plans: ‘We remain vehemently against any funding being routed through Pembrokeshire College, or the pupils being placed on that site.

‘If the Council does not listen to the voice of the people, it will be this Council which will have lost 21st Century funding.”