Planners have given the go ahead for a new school to be built in Machynlleth.
The new Ysgol Bro Hyddgen will cost £49 million and will offer a total of 540 school places for primary and secondary school children.
Powys County Council’s planning committee met on Thursday, 31 October and gave the application the green light.
Reacting to the news, Glantwymyn county councillor Elwyn Vaughan, who is also a governor at the school, said: “It’s very welcome news that Powys Council has granted planning approval to this long awaited development.
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“Now that the decision has been made, I’m looking forward to contractors arriving on the site, maybe even as soon as early 2025.
“It’s taken the best part of 10 years to reach this stage, which is why news of the approval is so welcome and so long awaited.
“We’re happy now, but I’m sure there will be even more celebrations later down the line when the project has finally been completed after a long road to get there.”
As well as a school building the plan includes demolishing the current campus, a 3G sports pitches, athletics facilities, outdoor performance space, play arear, new access, vehicle and cycle parking and associated works.
In a report to councilors, principal planning officer Richard Edwards said: “It is noted the site already has planning permission for use as a school with Natural Resources Wales (NRW) having reviewed the submitted Flood Consequence Assessment.
“NRW welcome the proposal as it is considered a betterment in relation to the existing situation where the current school is located in an area of high flood risk from the school stream watercourse and surface water flooding.”
The proposal for the new school campus was originally estimated to cost £23 million and has been worked on by the council since 2017.
The original Bro Hyddgen project fell foul of the collapse of construction firm Dawnus in 2019 which led to revised and bigger proposals from the then Independent/Conservative administration.
Due to ballooning costs, in October 2022, the new Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet chose to downsize the plans.
The new campus had been set to include library and leisure but was later deemed to expensive as estimated costs rose to £66 million in 2022.
Dropping plans for leisure and library facilities will see costs fall to £49.12 million with 65 per cent of the funding coming from the Welsh Government.