A MONMOUTHSHIRE special school will lose £250,000 of funding after senior councillors refused to reconsider a decision taken earlier this year.

With pupil numbers dwindling, Mounton House School in Chepstow saw its funding withdraw by the council in January.

Last week, members of Monmouthshire council’s children and young people’s select committee asked the cabinet to spread the funding cut over a longer period than planned, in a bid to mitigate the effects.

But the cabinet have said they ware unwilling to look again at the proposal.

The council passed the original measure in its annual budget and the funding will now be withdrawn, as planned, on Friday.

As the Argus has previously reported, the former head teacher of Mounton House, Paul Absalom, who was suspended in the summer of 2015, has now left.

When Mounton House’s funding was last assessed in 2010 there were 42 pupils at the school. There are now just 12.

At a meeting on Thursday, the council’s leader, councillor Peter Fox, said he backed other requests from the committee - including that reports on the school are regularly sent to them, and that funding is regularly reviewed.

But he said on the proposal to slow the funding cut: "The bit that is less easy is that there would be need to find £250,000 or similar to block this position or to alter this position. "That is not a recommendation that cabinet is in the position to make.

"I don't believe we're in receipt of a spare £250,000 so I will be struggling to accept [stalling any funding withdrawal]."

The school currently has a deficit of over £142,000, up from £26,000 at the start of the 2015/16 financial year.

But the cabinet member for children and young people, cllr Liz Hacket Pain, said the council and school are working together to “forge a way forward” and will meet over the next few weeks.

“One of the things that is quite apparent is that the new acting head at Mounton House is relatively new; he started in January," she added. "They have had to put an awful lot of things in place.”

The council’s chief officer for children and young people Sarah McGuinness added the school should see a recovery plan in place by September.