The link above will take you to the page relating to this on the Pembrokeshire County Council's (PCC) website.
It is quite a technical document, but the amount of building land available for the next five years is calculated. The amount of land available is summarised by one number - the Land Supply Available in Years. For the PCC area in 2014, this is 5.3.
In other words, PCC Land Supply Availability exceeds what they need for the next 5 years.
See the extract from the report below.
This implies that PCC do not NEED to demolish Old Pennar School to fulfil their land availability target.
The next thing to consider is whether the site of Old Pennar School has been identified in the JHLAS as a potential site for building new houses.
The report is very thorough, and as an appendix, lists all the sites identified as being able to fulfil the 5 year Land Supply Availability target. I have included an extract that shows the sites identified in Pembroke Dock below. (To make it readable, it overspills the page.)
Nowhere in the above list of sites, is Old Pennar School mentioned as contributing to the Land Supply Availability.
There is a document, much more substantial than the JHLAS 2014, that provides the background to the report. This is the Statement of Common Ground, the final version of which was published on the 19 February 2015. This gives far more detail about the sites mentioned in the JHLAS (published, incidentally, on 3 March 2015). It also gives an explanation of some of the terms and categories mentioned in the extract above. The parties to this were:
PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL LPA
THE HOME BUILDERS FEDERATION
PEMBROKESHIRE COAST NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY
PERSIMMON HOMES WEST WALES
PEMBROKESHIRE HOUSING ASSOCIATION
TAI CANTREF AND
DWR CYMRU WELSH WATER
Once again, no mention of Old Pennar School as a site for the provision of housing. It cannot have been counted as a "small site" as these are defined as being of 5 dwellings or less. The proposal at Old Pennar School is for 15 dwellings.
Bids for the purchase of Old Pennar School had to be submitted by 1 August 2014. Consultation on the sites proposed for inclusion in the JHLAS proceeded as described in the extract from the report below.
The draft schedules were available for consultation on 18 September 2014, a full 6 weeks after the bid closing date. Email correspondence with PCC Property has revealed that the two bids made, one by PHA, were submitted on 28 and 29 July 2014.
Even though 6+ weeks were available for a decision on which bid was to be accepted prior to the opening of consultations on the JHLAS, there is still no mention of Old Pennar School in the report. Given that, in Pembroke Dock, land for housing, that would become available within 3 years, is not much in evidence in the report, it is surprising that PCC did not include the Old Pennar School site. If the planning application is approved, then building work (and demolition) could start almost immediately.
Speculating about this might lead one to suppose that they (PCC) did not wish to highlight the future fate of Old Pennar School, worried about the considerable concern that they knew this might bring to the fore from the local community. PHA has already suggested that the proposed scheme would not have been pursued if they had known in advance about the level of local opposition to the plan to demolish what is an iconic landmark in the community of Pennar.
I am still minded to think that PHA have become embroiled in this matter somewhat unwittingly. Clearly they do not wish to be seen as the "bad guys" in this issue, but may well have been outmanoeuvred by the political machinations of PCC.
If you have stuck with this you deserve a medal!
More on this later. My next post will be a continuation of the bid to get the school listed.
