The whole consultation process around the potential closure of Ysgol Cilcennin has been a ‘farce’, according to angry campaigners.

And in a strongly worded statement, school governors accused Ceredigion County Council of deliberately seeking their school’s demise.

“The whole process of consultation has been a farce for four years when the decision to close the school was taken and the stress, distress and anger caused by the hypocrisy of the council leaves us bereft,” they said.

“Nowhere in the screeds of documents or numerous meetings, has it been explained to us why the prospective closure of Cilcennin School was announced at such an early stage when plans for a new area school in the Aeron Valley were already underway.

“Cilcennin should have been able to play an active role in those plans, (yet) at no point have we been made to feel that anything we have had to say was being taken seriously or that we were anything but a minor nuisance.

“The deliberate demise of the school has been council strategy for years and has obviously led to the self-fulfilling prophesy of falling numbers.

“At no point was the welfare of the children even taken into account, much less made a priority.

“Of course new parents couldn’t commit to sending their children to the school when the Sword of Damocles was hanging over it.

“Throughout this whole sorry saga the concerns of local children, parents, staff, governors and residents have been treated with contempt.”

Councillors have suggested the closure of Cilcennin, along with Beulah and Trewen, because of low pupil numbers and increasing costs.

See this week's South Ceredigion paper for the full story, available in shops and as a digital edition now