The Church in Wales is threatening legal action against Pembrokeshire County Council if it persists with a plan to remove church status from Cilgerran Voluntary Controlled Primary School.
The Church said the plan represents a threat to church education in the county, which is also the birthplace of Wales’ patron saint, David. Additionally, the Church noted that 97 per cent of responses to the consultation on the proposal opposed the plan.
The Church argued that removing church status from the school in such a manner was discrimination against faith schooling.
In response, the Church has said it will not make the school grounds available to a subsequent secular school. This would effectively mean that a school has been closed down, rather than changing the nature of an existing school.
The Church suggested that the council has a poor record when it comes to supporting faith schools, pointing to the case of Manorbier Church in Wales Voluntary Controlled School which the council decided to close earlier this month. Students numbers had been declining since a fire damaged the school in 2022, with remaining students using temporary accommodation for much of their education.
Despite apparently receiving promises from the council that the school would be rebuilt, nothing was done and the school has declined to the point where closure is seen as the only viable option.
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.”
The council has been approached for comment.
