RESIDENTS in a Monmouthshire village have come out against a plan to house and educate children with learning difficulties there.

Private healthcare company The Priory Group wants to open a care home for up to six young people between nine and 18-years-old and convert a stone barn into a special school in Mitchel Troy.

It already runs a facility, the Talocher School, in nearby Monmouth, along with others in Abergavenny, Pontypool and Newport.

But 18 people have objected to the plan, on Common Road. Some say the development would “spoil the village”, while others infer that other children and elderly residents could be put at risk.

They have the backing of their county councillor Geoff Burrows, who is also the council’s cabinet member for social care and health.

Another two residents said they were in favour. One told the council as part of a consultation: “These are children who have a variety of issues and need care and support, not to be made to feel like criminals”.

Another person who said they were impartial to the scheme wrote: “Mitchel Troy is a village that seems to like to pick and choose who does and doesn’t live here.”

On The Priory Group’s website, they say the Talocher School “provides a warm, welcoming and relaxed environment for young people who are resident within Priory residential childcare facilities or as day pupils, who are unable to attend mainstream education because of their behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.”

Children educated in Mitchel Troy would be from either Monmouthshire or from surrounding areas. Monmouthshire council would be able to place children in the care home.

But comments from the council’s social services suggest that it is unlikely because they tend to place to place children out of the county – “sometimes suitability of the match between the placement…and sometimes because of a lack of vacancies.”

Monmouthshire council’s planning committee will be asked to make a decision on whether The Priory Group should be allowed to continue with their proposals at a meeting at County Hall in Usk next Tuesday from 2pm.