Year’s delay feared over building of new school

The process for finding a new contractor following the collapse of construction firm Dawnus is still under way.

Powys County Council says that meetings are being held with companies at the moment.

On the Sell2Wales website where the contract to finish building the school was advertised, it was expected that the new construction firm would be on site by the end of August.

Originally it had been expected that staff and pupils at the new school, would be able to go to their new home in September.

But the collapse of construction firm Dawnus has put the timescale for completing the job way behind schedule.

Chair of governors, Councillor Francesca Jump, said: “We’re hoping it’s going to be finished by September 2020. It was supposed to be September 2019, but that’s not going to happen now.

“This means that we’re facing a tough year, as we will continue to have the expense of running the school over three sites (Gungrog, Oldford and Howell Drive).

Projects

“We are running three breakfast clubs and we have to consider staffing levels as well. I expect that proper research has been done into the firm that gets the contract to make sure it gets completed.”

When Dawnus went bust, it had three school building projects in Powys.

The other two are redeveloping the listed former Maesydre School to accommodate Ysgol Gymraeg y Trallwng – Welshpool’s Welsh medium school – and the all-through (four to 18 years) Ysgol Bro Hyddgen in Machynlleth.

A council spokesman said: “The priority is the Church in Wales school. The pre-qualification process was completed a couple of weeks ago and meetings have been held with companies who completed that process.

“The new tenders will be issued within the next month.” The other two projects are with planning.”

Questions have been raised as to why the Welsh Government did not warn local authorities of Dawnus’s flimsy financial position.

Dawnus was also discussed at a meeting of the Welsh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee in June.