Education chiefs can’t say where they would build a new area school for the Aeron Valley as they must follow a formal process, Ceredigion County Council’s leader has insisted.

The authority’s education department wants to close three small schools at Ciliau Parc, Dihewyd and Felinfach and replace them with a new area school utilising 21st Century School funding from the Welsh Government.

While there has been both support and some opposition to the proposal, Cllr Lynford Thomas said Llanfihangel Ystrad Community Council had not been able to decide whether to back a new area school as they didn’t know where it would be sited.

While Cllr Thomas said he backed the closure of two of the schools, he said he opposed one of the closures, but said the biggest issue in the community was where any new area school would be located, something that the community council said it needed to know before it could decide on a response to the proposals.

However, council leader Ellen ap Gwynn said the authority was not at the stage where it could identify a site, and that the council had to follow the formal process.

She said: “We cannot take it for granted that the full council will agree with this proposal.

“We cannot run, we have to walk through this process.

“If we bought land and said this is where the school will be built, someone will tell us ‘you have made a decision’.”

An informal consultation has been held, but a formal consultation will now take place until 13 October.

That will result in a report to the Cabinet in November, before the full council makes a decision on whether to close the three schools in favour of providing a new area school.

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