LONG-AWAITED plans by Newport City Council to build a new Welsh-language secondary school have been recommended for refusal – by the authority’s own planning department.

The £17 million scheme will see the existing Duffryn High School in Lighthouse Road – to be renamed John Frost School after the leader of the 1839 Newport Chartist Rising – split in two to facilitate the building of the new Welsh facility.

But, although the council has already secured match funding from the Welsh Government for the project, the authority’s own planning department has recommended the application should be turned down over concerns around the potential for flooding to the site.

In a report to be presented at a meeting of the council’s planning committee on Wednesday, February 3, a raft of concerns around the vulnerability of the site to flooding and the potential danger pupils, teachers and parents could be placed in as a result are presented as reasons for the scheme to be turned down.

The report reads: “The proposal represents the intensification of a highly vulnerable development at a site within the flood plain and runs contrary to the precautionary principle of national planning policy.”

The council has previously said no other sites are available to build the new school – which will have spaces for 900 pupils once fully open – and it does not have funds to buy a new site.

The application also involves the building of two three-storey blocks, one for each school, as well as new sports pitches, parking and drop-off areas.

Headteacher Jon Wilson was unavailable for comment as the Argus went to press, but in a letter on the school’s website he urged parents to write to the council’s planning department in support of the plans by emailing lloyd.jones@newport.gov.uk by Monday, February 1.

“After a long and protracted process we are at the final stage of planning for the new building due to go ahead on the Duffryn High School site,” he said.

The new developments were initially due to be complete by this September, with pupils from Newport and south Monmouthshire having already been offered places at the new Welsh school for the next academic year. But in November last year parents were told their children would instead share space at primary Ysgol Gymraeg Bro Teyrnon in Brynglas Drive until the building was complete.

Next Wednesday’s meeting at Newport Civic Centre will begin at 10am and is open to the public.

To view the full application visit Newport.gov.uk and search for application 15/1103.