High Court hears challenge to closure of Welsh language primary school

What is claimed to be the first legal challenge to a proposed closure of a Welsh-language primary school has been heard in only the second set of proceedings ever put to the High Court in Welsh.

The case R (Aron Wyn Jones) v Denbighshire County Council concerns a plan to close Ysgol Pentrecelyn, a village school for some 56 Welsh-speaking pupils, and merge it with a nearby bilingual school, Ysgol Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, in a new building on a different site.

Gwion Lewis, of Landmark Chambers, acting for parents, said this would mean that a single teacher would alternate between Welsh and English throughout the day to cater for the two language streams within the same class.

The set said the Welsh Government’s statutory school organisation code requires closure proposals to have a Welsh language and community impact assessment but that in this case it assessed only the impact of an interim proposal to merge the two schools for a year, during which the pupils would remain on the two existing sites.

“Unsurprisingly, the [assessment] concluded that there would only be very modest language and community impacts from this interim proposal,” Landmark noted.

Campaigners argued that it was unlawful to fail to consider the impact of the eventual plan to merge the two schools on a single site, and that other faults meant the council failed to meet the required standards of a fair consultation.

Landmark said the case was only the second since the High Court was established in 1875 in which written and oral submissions had been made in Welsh.

Hickinbottom J and HHJ Milwyn Jarman QC heard the case in Mold, aided by simultaneous translation, and are expected to deliver a judgment before the end of the summer term.

When the council decided to close the school last October it said in a letter to stakeholders that closure would reduce surplus places, allow pupils to learn in 21st century buildings and facilities, reduce the age range of pupils taught together and also maintain parental preference for the language used.

Mark Smulian