Spanner in the Works Could Delay £49 Million School Building in Powys

A SPANNER could be thrown into the works and delay the building of a new £49 million all through school in Powys.
Last summer it had been expected that plans for a long-awaited new school building for Machynlleth’s all through combined primary and secondary school, Ysgol Bro Hyddgen would be lodged with Powys County Council as soon as September.
While the planning application has still not been formally been submitted, drop in sessions were held at the school in December to allow people to view the proposal as part of a statutory pre-planning application consultation.
But now the whole process could be thrown into disarray as Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic and environment service has confirmed it has been asked to list the building.
A spokesman for Cadw said: “We received requests to consider Ysgol Bro Hyddgen for listing in November 2023 and the request is currently being considered.”
The proposal for the new school campus was first mooted back in 2017 and has been dogged by problems.
The original Bro Hyddgen project had fallen foul of the collapse of construction firm Dawnus in 2019 which led to the revised and bigger proposals.
In October 2022, the Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet chose to downsize the plans for the new Machynlleth school campus.
The new campus had been set to include library and leisure facilities which had been estimated to cost £48 million in 2020.
But by October 2022 the cost had shot up to £66 million.
Dropping the leisure centre from the project will see the costs fall back to £49.12 million with 65 per cent of the funding coming from the Welsh Government.
The revised business case was agreed by the Welsh Government in January 2023.
It had been hoped that the school will be built and be open to pupils in 2026.
Applications to list a building have impacted other recent school building projects in Welshpool that have caused delays and added millions of pounds onto the cost of schemes.
Powys County Council have been asked for a comment. ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​