Dear Resident

Wrexham Council proposed changes to free school transport for Chirk children

I am writing to remind you to respond to the consultation regarding the removal of free school transport to Dinas Bran for those children who live in Chirk.

The school and the historic links with Chirk and other neighbouring communities are unique. In 1895 the school was opened to serve the population of Chirk, Glyn Ceiriog, Garth, Trevor, Lianarmon D.C, Llantysilio, Carrog and the Dee Valley. This was approved and received Royal Assent on August 7th. 1894. Our community situation is very different to other schools that border other parts of Wrexham or take children from outside their community.

Many changes have occurred with boundaries over the years but the school has always been designated to serve the Dee Valley throughout the re-organisation of Local Authorities, as the schools' designated catchment area has remained unchanged.

Local Authorities responsible for the area and Government have consistently stated over the years that the children from Chirk should go to Dinas Bran. even though boundaries have changed. This has allowed significant public funds (both local and national funding) to be invested to provide a school to meet the community needs since it became a comprehensive school in 1967.

If this new transport policy is introduced there will be segregation introduced into our community, as primary schools and families will be split, together with friendships lost because children will be going in different directions. This policy will cause significant issues, which is working against the principles of one of Wrexham's other policies of community cohesion.

If children are taken away from the school it will change the nature of the whole Dee Valley community and affect everyone in that community, as well as Ysgol Dinas Bran. It is highly likely the school will close, as insufficient children will attend to make the school financially viable.

CIIr Aled Roberts, Wrexham Council Leader, stated when he attended our public meeting last October, that the reasoning for this policy change is to secure Wrexham County children attend Wrexham schools as school rolls are falling; not that it was a cost cutting exercise. (The cost of running the buses is about the same no matter which school they transport children to. Additionally the Welsh Assembly Government provides a substantial grant to the Council, which covers the bulk of the expenditure anyway.)

Currently our children cannot be accommodated in Ruabon school; Wrexham's choice for our children. If this policy goes through, there would have to be an extraordinary capital investment in that school to physically accommodate our children. This would come from our Council and Income Tax. Why should we pay twice for school facilities when public funds have already provided, updated and improved a suitable education facility for us?

The children of Chirk have a legitimate expectation that their schooling will continue in Dinas Bran and that they can follow their parents, siblings and friends.

They therefore need help from their community, whether they are your own children, your grandchildren, niece/nephew, or indeed your neighbours' children.

We are working hard to support the efforts of our two County Councillors in trying to prevent this flawed new policy coming into place. The local press is giving good coverage of this.

We were successfully supported when we called a public meeting last October when we invited Cllr Aled Roberts, to answer our & your questions. Almost 300 people turned out that night to support us and packed the parish hall. A clear message was sent to Wrexham and we had complete support from Assembly Government members that night too.

However, all that public feedback, emails and letters sent at that time, were before the consultation started, therefore Wrexham Council will ignore them when feeding back views to their Executive Board in April!

Therefore we need you to write or email Wrexham Council again, responding to the consultation, objecting to the proposals and request the present policy to remain in place to allow our children to continue to go to Dinas Bran.

The community needs to make its feelings known to Wrexham Council about how this would effect our children, increase costs to parents in fuelling cars or paying for public transport, split our community and damage a good school and its community.

Please ensure you write or email to make your views heard, as individual responses cannot be ignored. The address is:

Mr John Davies
Chief Learning & Achievement Officer

Wrexham County Borough Council

16 Lord Street,
Wrexham,