"A New School For Hay Without Ruining the Town"

This was the banner behind the stage in the school hall this evening, and such was the interest in the meeting that it had to be done in two sessions - the second session is still going on as I type this. The school hall was full, and so was the room to one side of the hall, and I was standing right at the back of the classroom beyond the hall, so at least 300 people, and another similar number for the second session.
And this is going to be a long post....

The meeting was held to tell people what is happening about the new school development, and the proposed retail development that the County Council insists needs to take place along with it - as well as the care home and community centre which are part of the deal. So far, an option agreement with the developer, Gaufron, has not been signed, and until it is, nothing concrete can be decided (in every sense), but in the meantime there is plenty that can be done by the people of Hay in response to the proposals.

There were several speakers to start with - Jenny Valentine from Plan B for Hay started off by explaining where we are at the moment.
I didn't get all the names, though the main MC said he was a parish councillor in Cusop.
A chap called Jason from Llandrindod Wells told us what his town was like now that Tesco's has opened there. They have lost one newsagent, a bakers, sweetshop, clothes shop, electrical shop, and several others, as well as half the market traders. The ones that are left are surviving, but have less diversity of stock than they used to have.
A local beekeeper (who used to be the Company Secretary of the Royal Welsh) described his business, supplying 100 outlets in a 40 mile radius with honey - though his output ranges from nothing in a bad year to five or six tons in a good year. In the last couple of years, he has lost 50% of his business in Brecon, as tourists haven't been coming and a couple of shops he used to supply have closed down. His sales are 37% down in Llandrindod Wells, and still falling - but sales in Hay have risen by 15%. He employs four part time staff, all of whom do specialised work - and he attributes his loss of sales to the supermarkets in Brecon and Llandrindod Wells.
Ali from Londis, who has lived in Hay all her life, gave a passionate plea for Hay to remain a special place, where customers are known personally to the shop staff.

Tim Organ, the architect, has been drawing up plans for an alternative school building for Hay and, unlike the County Council and developers, he and his team have been talking to the teachers who will actually be using the school to find out what their needs are. He had a plan with him, though the press of people was such that it couldn't be seen at the meeting, and will be shown instead on Thursday's market, where people can comment and volunteer to join Plan B if they wish.
He did say that it would be possible to build a new school on the present site without disruption to the present school - at which there was a loud round of applause. He also mentioned the present swimming pool - which would be lost in the current plans for a new school on the Forest Road site.

The meeting was then opened for comments.
One man asked if the school facilities could be also used as part of a new community centre, and Tim Organ said it was certainly possible, and it was important for a new school to be at the heart of the community's cultural life.
Someone asked about the cost - figures of 5 to 6 million pounds have been mentioned by the developer, and 7 to 8 million by the County Council, but those figures could probably be reduced greatly by judicious use of local suppliers. It was also mentioned that there are other local schools that are going to be closed under the County Council's school re-organisation scheme, and those school sites would be sold - with that money presumably becoming available to fund the new building in Hay. Having one central school will, of course, make the running costs lower.
The Welsh Assembly announced new money for school buildings in November, as long as there was match funding but so far the County Council has chosen not to look at ways of match funding as they prefer the developer option.
It would also be cheaper and quicker to use a prefab building - and prefabs have come a long way since the bad old days of the 1960s, with some very high standards. Tim Organ was talking about making a school fit for purpose to last 100 years, and that this was one option they were looking at. There's also a new European company doing prefab buildings coming to Hereford.
One chap near the front pointed out that the County Council would be bandying about all sorts of costings in the next few months, and they needed to be looked at forensically - because, he said "they get it wrong most of the time." He pointed out that they had suggested that they would save 2 million pounds in the secondary school re-organisation, but when the figures were actually looked at in detail it turned out to cost 2 million more!

Someone else asked if there are other communities out there who have fought off a supermarket and won? Ledbury was mentioned, where they recently stopped a new Tesco development - but Sainsbury's have immediately come in with a new application. However, most other developments have been fought at the planning stages when the supermarket already owned the land they wanted to build on. In Hay, that is not the case, and any objectors are in a stronger position because that all important option agreement hasn't been signed yet.
Someone else asked if the Co-op, which has been in talks with the developer, and also has been looking at selling its present site, could be able to block any other supermarket from coming in? The chap from Plan B pointed out that this would be a risky strategy, partly because the developer and the County Council would want the maximum return from the school site land, so would be inclined to go with the highest bidder.
The community, he said, should explore the options, not a developer.

One lady said that "the men at the other meeting" said that the community raising the money to build a new school was not an option. She wasn't sure who the men were - the Plan B man said they had been from the County Council - and that they hadn't thought that the community could do it at the time. Now that they've seen the depth of feeling, they have said (at the December meeting in Llandrindod Wells) that they would welcome other ways of funding a new school, but there's no guarantee that they would give the land to build on if the people of Hay do come up with the funding.

The next question was - did anyone in the room think that a new supermarket was a good idea? And could they explain why? There were several Town Councillors in the room, and Nigel Birch shouted out that the Town Council were as much in the dark as everyone else. Then Peter Lloyd got up on the platform - he's deputy mayor at the moment - and asked "Where have you all been for the past twenty years?" He said that the Town Council have quietly been working away to get a new school for twenty years, with no interest from the public and now there's mention of a supermarket suddenly everybody wants to know. He seemed to think that the County Council's plan was the only way to get a new school for Hay.

Another lady was looking further into the future. The daughter of a local hill farmer, she said that the people of Hay shouldn't just be looking to get a new school but they should keep the momentum up to fight for all the vulnerable people in Hay.

So who are Plan B for Hay? another lady asked, and the Plan B chap outlined the first public meeting in Booths Bookshop, from which have come several sub-committees, and he encouraged anyone with any interest to join in. There are all sorts of people (including a group of lawyers who are challenging the way the County Council are going about things legally).

One chap with a long memory said that the present school was always intended to be temporary when it was built, until a permanent school could be built - and were there any restrictions on the school site so it couldn't be used for commercial use? The Plan B man said they had heard that too, but when they looked into it, it seemed there were no restrictions.

Another man said that there was a group behind Gaufron called Edinburgh and Kensington Estates, who specialise in offering "sweetheart deals" in return for retail developments. They have been active all over Wales and in Scotland, though not always successfully. They have a website at www.kenandedin.com

The County Council had been invited to the meeting, but decided not to come, but Roger Williams, MP, was there. He said he couldn't stay for the second session, because he had to get to London early in the morning - and he was actually missing a debate this evening about food poverty! He has been championing a cause called "Planning for Real", which is trying to involve the public in planning decisions, so he was very pleased to see how many people had turned out this evening. "The County Council could have handled this better," he said, to general agreement. He said he used to be proud that his constituency was a Tesco-free zone, but now there are two Tescos - and he pointed out that supermarkets are very determined to get their own way, so it will be a hard and long fight against them.

So what comes next? The planning boards will be on display at the Thursday market, together with comment cards (everybody at the meeting got a card to fill in with their details and any comments they wanted to make). There will also be a survey coming shortly, not only in Hay but in all the surrounding area. And again anyone interested was encouraged to volunteer.
Plan B for Hay now has a website at www.PlanBforHay.org