Allow The Awen Project a temporary change of planning use so it can operate as a school.

The Awen Project (an organisation to help enterprising democratic initiatives set up by Charlotte Church) wants to pilot its school for a year in the annex of Charlotte's home in Dinas Powys, for no more than 20 children (aged 9-12), until 17th July 2020, when it will move to another location.

The children are ready to start, only the planning committee stand in their way.

Estyn (the education and training inspectorate for Wales) has inspected the site, read through the curriculum and policies, and has stated that they will recommend that Welsh Government allow the school to open, pending a temporary change of use on the property.

There have been 4 objections by influential members of the community concerning traffic and noise, and despite extensive consultation with these neighbours and assurances that their concerns have been heard but are unfounded, the objections still stand. Subsequently traffic and noise surveys are being conducted to show that there will be little to no change in either case.

Apart from the wonderful little school that we hope to set up, The Awen Project hopes in the future to give seed funding to other communities so that they might set up their own schools that suit their needs. Beyond this The Awen Project also has great scope to effect real change on a much broader societal level and it would be a great shame if it were not allowed to do so.

UPDATE:

- Our noise assessment has found that “the absolute level… is at most 38dB”, "approaching levels experienced within a library.”

- Our traffic survey found that: “The traffic impact of the proposed school would be negligible. The only new vehicle trips would be those generated by the two members of teaching staff. The negligible number of new vehicle trips would have no material impact on highway safety. It has been demonstrated that the traffic volumes on Twyncyn are extremely low with only 6 cars per hour during the proposed school’s set down/pick up periods. The impact on pedestrian safety would therefore be negligible.”