THE proposed sale of a former school site for around £635,000 has been backed by Torfaen council’s cabinet.

At a meeting yesterday, Torfaen County Borough Council was asked to approve a purchase offer for the former Kemys Fawr Infant School site in the Panteg area.

The land had been used as a second site for Ysgol Panteg Primary School, from 2014, until its move to a single site in Station Road, Griffithstown.

Following this, the council advertised the land for sale and received four offers, the highest exceeding £500,000.

Yesterday, the cabinet voted to approve the sale on a “subject to contract” basis, which will requires site investigations and planning permission before the sale is finalised.

Estimated costs of asbestos removal and demolition of the school buildings were included in the offer submitted to the local authority, but this could change in the event of a variation between the estimates and actual costs, it was said in the meeting.

The cabinet also agreed to recommendations that the sale sum would be subject to a deduction of around £60,000 from the purchase price, with funds allocated towards the renewal of a play area locally.

Torfaen council’s education head, and Panteg ward councillor, David Yeowell, expressed disappointment that the site had not been designated as a “social hub” for the community.

He said: “As I said at the time when we were closing Kemys Fawr School it’s a shame because the estate had very little going for it anyway.

“If you take the school away there’s virtually nothing there except a shop and the playing fields opposite that were in dire need of attention.

“Whilst I’m disappointed that we couldn’t have got the dream ticket of having a community centre occupying that particular piece of territory, I’m glad that a fairly decent sum is going to be used to refurb the playing field area.”

“I’m glad that the community gets something out of it because the playing field refurbishment is long overdue,” he added.

The council leader, Cllr Anthony Hunt, added: “This comes off the backdrop of a positive bit of news in that Ysgol Panteg are getting a brand new purpose built site.

“The more regrettable side for us as local members certainly is the great need in the Kemys Fawr estate and that’s something we need to talk about in different forums perhaps.

“Having said that the new play facility will be very much appreciated and is something we have been looking for for a long time.

“I hope that the developers can work with the community to ensure that what comes forward from that is a real asset to the community.”