Council gets to work on millions of pounds of school improvements

Work is beginning on millions of pounds worth of improvements for more than 20 city schools as part of the council’s investment in school maintenance.

Swansea Council will be spending more than £4 million this financial year to repair and keep safe its assets across the city.

And the lion’s share of the funds is being dedicated to spending in schools to maintain and improve school environments to support the council’s work promoting education and pupil attainment.

It’s on top of millions of pounds of match funding set aside for new school builds and refurbishments as part of the 21st Century schools programme jointly-funded with Welsh Government.

Andrea Lewis, Cabinet member for Next Generation Services, said: “Pupil attainment is a priority for this local authority and one of the ways we are doing this is investing in schools environments to support quality learning.

“Our Corporate Building and Property Services team works closely with schools to prioritise need and make repairs and improvements to a high standard with minimum disruption to learning.

“This latest investment will provide essential repairs to sustain school buildings, improve energy efficiency, ensure that school premises are fit for purpose and meet the needs of pupils, as well as reducing loss of lessons due to leaks and faults.”

Pontarddulais Primary School is one of the schools which will be benefit with over £140,000 earmarked for electrical improvements there.

Head teacher Jonathan Mead said: “It’s important to maintain our buildings so we can continue to provide quality education to the more than 500 pupils on our school site.

“We welcome this latest investment from the Council which will ensure we can consistently offer a very good range of learning facilities which our staff utilise fully to support and enhance the curriculum and help pupils achieve their full potential.”

The maintenance programme also includes major roofing schemes for Plasmarl and Clase Primaries, a boiler house refurbishment to improve heating at Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr, and a heating scheme for Ysgol Pen-y-Bryn.

Apart from the spending on schools, Cabinet has also set aside £600,000 for emergency repairs and a further £230,000 for fire risk assessment works on other Council-owned premises.