MORE than 100 people are expected to gather outside Newport Civic Centre at 3.45pm tomorrow afternoon for a demonstration against council plans to merge two primary schools.

Wednesday is the final day of Newport council’s statutory notice period that it intends to close Gaer Infants School and merge it with Gaer Junior School at the junior site.

The infant school is set to become an autism unit.

Debbie Haile, one of the founders of the group Save Gaer Schools, told the Argus ahead of the demonstration that it was not political and would be peaceful.

She said: “We will present a list of our serious concerns and also what we would support.

We feel the council has manipulated the figures; on the one hand saying there is a rise in pupil numbers but elsewhere in the same document they say there is a risk of falling pupil numbers.

“We are so angry. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The group has suggested that an annexe at the infants school is turned into an ASD unit, and is calling for a cancellation of the statutory notice and a return to consultation, with the proposal of a split-site amalgamated through-primary making use of all current buildings.

Last week the group sent Newport’s chief education officer James Harris a 40-bullet- point letter questioning the benefits of and reasons for amalgamation.