POWYS County Council’s plans to close Gwernyfed High School could be thrown into disarray due to a £300,000 lottery grant, it has been claimed.

The school in Three Cocks was awarded the cash in 2005 by the Big Lottery Fund’s new opportunities scheme to develop sports pitches.

But is has now been claimed as Powys County Council must get the lottery fund’s approval to dispose of the facilities its plans to close Gwernyfed could be in doubt.

Powys County Council says the Big Lottery Fund is named in its consultation document produced to gather views on closing the schools.

James Gibson-Watt, the county councillor for Glasbury, said he had been the vice chairman of governors at Gwernyfed when it applied, with the assistance of Powys County Council, for the £371,000 lottery cash.

The Liberal Democrat councillor said the funding was used to buy land adjacent to the school, that had been the former Coleg Powys farm, to be converted for sports pitches.

All weather pitches were also built at the school site as part of the development and one of the conditions of the funding was the facilities would be available for community use outside of school hours.

Cllr Gibson-Watt said it is a condition when lottery cash is used to purchase property the fund retains an interest in the property for 80 years.

The councillor claims that means the lottery fund must agree to the council’s proposals if the school is to close.

He said he had first highlighted the issue of the lottery funding after he was re-elected to the council last August, following a by-election.

"I raised it at the first schools organisation review panel I attended in September. I informed officers at the time of the lottery funding in the school.

"The council is now about to go out to public consultation on closing the school which will require the agreement of a third party. The council can’t proceed unless there is an agreement with the lottery."

Cllr Gibson-Watt said the council’s business case to eventually fund a new school in Brecon is dependent on selling off the Gwernyfed site.

Other sports facilities, previously run by the council, were transferred to the school in 2015 and the councillor said all the sports facilities are well used by the community.

"Gwernyfed Rugby Club use them, there is a netball team that use the artificial pitches and football teams who use them for training and matches.

"As a local member my concern now is whatever happens to the school the facilities have to be retained for the community.

"To my mind it calls into question the whole business case as the council wants to dispose of the site. I can’t believe the lottery would allow that to happen if the community is heavily using the facilities as they are. It runs completely contrary to all Welsh Government policies.

"My view is all of that should have been discussed prior to the decision by the cabinet to go out to consultation.

"I don’t think any members of the cabinet have been out to Gwernyfed, if they had they would have seen the facilities and maybe a lightbulb would have gone off and they would have thought. ’there’s no way the council could have paid for this on its own’."

Cllr Gibson-Watt said he has asked the chairman of the council’s education scrutiny committee to look at the issue and has questioned if the cabinet was informed of the lottery grant.

"To go to consultation, without having earlier consulted the lottery which I understand verbally to be the case, I find bizarre," said Cllr Gibson-Watt.

A community impact assessment report presented to the cabinet when it agreed to start the consultation at the end of February said: "The community centre and sports facilities were partially financed by a Big Lottery Grant."

A spokesman for the Big Lottery Fund said: "We have been in touch with Powys Council to discuss the proposals for the school and also the terms and conditions of our grant.

"We now await the final decision on the proposals which are currently open to public consultation."

Powys County Council’s spokesman said: "The cabinet decision is to commence formal consultation on the closure of Gwernyfed and Brecon secondary schools and establish a new English-medium 11-16 that will operate across the current sites from September 2017.

"The Big Lottery Fund is a stakeholder named in the consultation document and any views on the subject will be considered as part of the consultation report considered by the cabinet."