RESIDENTS have spoken of feeling ignored while a planning application for a new primary school on the Guardian memorial site progresses.

An objection period over the plans to build a new community primary school on the old Six Bells colliery site – next to the 20 metre-high memorial – closed in July, but a row has broken out over the number of objections received by Blaenau Gwent Council. Speaking at a recent extraordinary meeting of Abertillery and Llanhilleth Community Council, Blaenau Gwent council officer Lynn Phillips said the local authority received only 22 objections to the proposals. But trader Hywel Clatworthy questioned the number.

“Everything we have worked for is at risk due to the plans and what has been said about the number of objections is just farcical,” he said. “We have had a petition of well over 500 that we presented to the council and for them to council a petition as the same as a letter from one person is just wrong. We have given up on speaking to the council because they don’t take what we say into account.” Residents have several concerns over the site including congestion worries over access from Bridge Street and Six Bells Road, the impact on parking at the proposed Chapel Road entrance with provisions for only four extra spaces, and whether tourists will still want to visit the memorial when it is no longer surrounded by publicly accessible green space.

Wendy Partridge, 67, whose husband lost two family members in the disaster and has a memorial bench at the site, said: “I don’t want the school completely. It will spoil and take away most of the site. Yet they want this site no matter what.”

The Welsh Government approved the final business case for the plans in March, and the new school, costing £7.2 million, is set to open in autumn next year.Six Bells Community Primary will be part of an all-in-one Abertillery learning community for pupils aged three to 16, merging four primary schools and one secondary under one umbrella.

Community ward councillor John Tiley, said: “We are desperate for a new school and some people will hold out for that school at any site but I think its an awful lot of ground for a 360 pupils school.

“When you look at the area, it’s an amenity used by people from all over Blaenau Gwent and beyond South Wales, it would be a real shame to lose it.” The planning application is set to be voted on at a special planning meeting of Abertillery and Llanhilleth Community Council tonight (Wednesday), where they will either agree or disagree with the proposals.