Flintshire to close six schools, build two
A decline in student numbers has led to more than 670 surplus spaces at primary and secondary schools in Flintshire – a fact the council and the Catholic Diocese of Wrexham is seeking to remedy through amalgamation.
Those numbers relate to four Catholic schools in the North Wales county (St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School, St David’s Catholic Primary School, St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, and St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School) as well as two primary schools in Saltney (Saltney Ferry Primary School and Saltney Wood Memorial Primary School).
Under proposals approved by Flintshire County Council’s cabinet last week, the local authority will now begin consulting on combining the four Catholic schools into one new-build, net zero carbon in operation facility. The two Saltney primary schools would similarly be combined and given a new-build, net zero carbon in operation building of their own.
Catholic schools
Regarding the Catholic schools, the county council is working alongside the Catholic Diocese of Wrexham, which initiated the amalgamation process. The resulting school would be 3-18, all-through facility built on the same site of St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School and St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Flint.
The four schools are at least 50 years old, with EPCs of E to C and a maintenance backlog of £1.5m.
The new school would have capacity for 315 primary students, 870 secondary pupils, and 120 sixth-form ones – for a total of 1,185. That’s 88 more student spaces than the schools currently have students – and far less than the 1,582 capacity currently in place.
All four schools would operate as normal until August 2027, after which they would shift to a single leadership and governance structure and operate from the St David’s Catholic Primary School, St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, and St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School sites until the new school is complete
St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School, which is located in Saltney, would close in September, with students offered a chance to either go to the nearest Catholic primary school in Flintshire or one in Chester. This is because the school has only 47 students and 105 surplus spaces.
Feasibility studies for a new school, conducted in 2024, put costs for the facility at £55m. The council meeting report from last week put the total estimated capital cost at £79.5m.
Saltney primary schools
St Anthony’s is not the only primary school in Saltney to be consolidated.
Saltney Ferry Primary School and Saltney Wood Memorial Primary School have a capacity for 452 students, but only 263 pupils between them.
Flintshire County Council has agreed to start the consultation process on merging the two into one new, 315-space, 3-11 primary school.
Like in the case of the Catholic schools, the new school would be net zero carbon in operation. It would be built on the existing site of Wood Memorial off Boundary Lane.
The current Saltney Ferry is more than 50 years old and EPC C, while Wood Memorial’s oldest part is more than a hundred years old and EPC E.
Like with the Catholic schools, a feasibility study from 2024 put the price of a new school at £12.5m. The cabinet report from last week’s meeting put the cost estimates at around £25m.
Saltney Ferry and Wood Memorial would continue to operate as normal until September 2027, at which point they would operate with a single governance structure until the new school was complete.
The consultation on the amalgamation of the schools will run until July, with the cabinet deciding to proceed with the process in September.
