PLANS for a Welsh-language secondary school and a new classroom block at Newport’s Duffryn High will be decided – again – later this month.

Parents, teachers and pupils reacted with fury after Newport City Council’s planning committee blocked the long-awaited application in February due to concerns from Natural Resources Wales around flood risk at the site.

This was despite there being no record of any flooding in the area since 1607.

Following widespread outcry, with Duffryn High headteacher John Wilson describing it as “the worst day of my career”, it was announced later the same month that the £17m project would be given a second chance by being re-determined by the full council rather than the planning committee at a special meeting on Thursday May 19.

More than £1m of taxpayers’ money has already been spent on the plans for the new Welsh-language secondary school, as well as a much-needed new classroom block at Duffryn High – to be renamed the John Frost School in September in honour of the leader of the 1839 Chartist Rising.

The council is legally required to provide Welsh-language education and the new school – to be named Ysgol Gyfun Gwent Iscoed after the historic name for the part of the region Newport lies in – was originally slated to be complete in time for the 2016-2017 academic year, with pupils already accepted to start this September.

But last year it was announced this had been pushed back a year and youngsters would instead have to share space at Ysgol Gymraeg Bro Teyrnon in Brynglas Drive.

The refusal of the application – which had been made jointly by Newport City Council and Monmouthshire County Council – means the arrangement will have to continue until summer 2018.

Although the council had agreed a funding arrangement with the Welsh Government, this was declared null and void once the application was refused.

As part of the re-submission of the application, every organisation which legally has to be consulted into the plans – including Natural Resources Wales – must again be given the chance to make a representation.

The meeting at the Civic Centre on May 19 will begin at 5pm and is open to the public. The full agenda will be available from a week beforehand at newport.gov.uk