Leader of the council speaks on schools reorganisation in the city

Leader of Cardiff Council Rodney Berman has said the reorganisation of schools in the city is necessary to stop a gap in education provision widening between rich and deprived areas of the city. Speaking in an interview with Guardian Cardiff , Berman said local unrest and political controversy in certain parts of the city is the result of a lack of understanding for how the reorganisation process is set out to benefit the city as a whole. Berman said: "People ask us why we are cutting down places at schools which are full – but it's about where pupils are coming from. If pupils are filling up places from outside the catchment area then other local schools will suffer. "If they are taking pupils from neighbouring deprived areas, the quality of education provided in those areas will drop and those schools may have to close. "We want people in deprived and affluent areas to have well funded quality education." The need for schools reorganisation in Cardiff The council have approximated there are 9,000 surplus places in schools over Cardiff – including 30 primary schools and 7 secondary schools – costing the council £3m a year. But the council is juggling meeting Welsh Assembly Targets of reducing surplus places to 10% with a rising demand for Welsh-medium education in the city. Berman said these two problems are in some ways linked but two separate issues, creating a difficult task of increasing places for Welsh-medium provision and cutting down surplus places in English-medium schools. Today the Wales Audit Office released a report saying school buildings in Wales were not fit for purpose showing schools in Cardiff won't reach standards until 2020. Earlier this month pupils from Welsh-medium Ysgol Treganna raised awareness of their cramped working conditions by holding classes outside the Senedd. Berman said: "Our policy is to seek to provide accommodation to match the demand for Welsh-medium education. But it makes life more complicated because we need to make sure the school places are there. "I often have people call me and say they understand why that need to do something, but that we have made the wrong choice. That's a natural reaction you will get from people." There is a FAQ page on the schools reorganisation process on the council's website here. The reorganisation process looks at either reducing school sizes but keeping the existing sites such as in Ely and Caerau, or merging a school and building a new site for it such as in Llanrumney (where the redundant school site can then be sold off). Berman said each ward needs individual consideration to make this decision – and often depends on the state of the existing schools. Berman said: "In Ely the schools don't just act as schools, they are campuses for the community. In Llanrumney we are looking at a new site which is more central, but in Ely the school sites are already very central." Llanrumney and Rumney High school merger Berman was keen to point out the public space created from the building of a new site for the amalgamated Llanrumney and Rumney High Schools would actually be greater than the land lost on Rumney Recreation Ground for the new site. He said headteachers of both schools welcomed the improvements the reorganisation will bring. But the proposals to build on the historic recreation ground have been met with widespread opposition in the form of the Save Rumney Recreation Ground Action group and local MP Alun Michael. Read our guest post interview with the chair of RREEL here. Berman said local people had been misinformed that the proposal included plans to close the Eastern Leisure Centre, when in fact the council is putting money into renovating the leisure centre and keeping it in the exact same spot. Berman said: "We did not come to the decision lightly, and the fact is both the current schools are not of particular great quality – the buildings were constructed at a time when we didn't build things to last. "They're not offering kids what they deserve in that part of the city – we didn't want a make-do-and-mend approach which would be selling future generations of children short. "I appreciate people don't want to lose Rumney Rec, but what people don't see is the proposal for the new build on Rumney Rec will actually increase the amount of accessible public green spaces because the old school grounds will be opened up. We will also be improving and investing in Eastern Leisure Centre – we're not going to be restricting any access to it. I think the reorganisation here will do much to enhance the area. "We are trying to maximise the money we are spending – we can't plunder money into one area of the city at the expense of another." Scrapped plans for Canton closures Berman said the executive is now taking on the difficult decision of looking for new options for a proposal to reorganise schools in Canton – an area, he said, which is not dissimilar to Whitchurch in the fact the English-medium schools are attracting pupils from further afield and deprived neighbouring areas – which means local schools in Ely and Llandaff North suffer even more at the loss of pupil numbers. "We still favour Lansdowne 1-form entry on a new site. We may have to look at a new build but this will require funding and at the moment there's no funding to allocate." What do you think of the schools reorganisation in your area and the leader of the council's comments on the issue? Leave you comments below.