TWO school sites in Torfaen, including one excellent Estyn-rated nursery, will be offered to registered social landlords (RSLs) after they were deemed as surplus to educational requirements.

Torfaen council’s cabinet approved the disposal of the Abersychan Brynteg Nursery School and a parcel of land at the Blenheim Primary School on Tuesday - January 16 - morning.

A third site – Victoria Primary School, also in Abersychan – was part of a similar proposal which came before the cabinet in November, but the matter was adjourned.

The school, which is set to close alongside Brynteg Nursery at the end of the academic year, could be turned into an arts and craft centre, with ward members drawing up plans for that potential development at the moment.

Cllr Veronica Crick, the executive member for performance improvement and corporate governance, said: “We’re looking for limiting the potential purchasers to registered social landlords of which we’ve got three in our area – Pobl, Melin [Homes] and Bron Afon.

“Through doing this we should be maximising the number of affordable housing that’s available in the area.

“The monies will come back into our capital programme. It really is a win-win situation in many ways.”

The Brynteg site is at the end of a cul-de-sac and extends to roughly half an acre, while the Blenheim area was deemed surplus by the cabinet in December 2015 and is approximately 1.2 acres.

Victor Mbvundula, Torfaen council’s corporate asset manager said "The element of maximising the affordable housing for example on these sites there are relatively small sites, you are probably looking at something like 20 dwellings but that would be 20 all affordable housing units.

"Whereas if you went to the private sector model, you are looking at 30 per cent so six units instead of 20."

Mr Mbvundula added that early indications show interest from the RSLs and he thought it would "very unlikely" that the sites would go to market.

"It is quite a significant contribution to the supply of affordable housing within the borough," he said.

"There is interest for these sites so it is very unlikely we will get to the point where none of the sites have been taken up by the RSLs, where we are having to go to the market value but we have that as a fall-back position if there wasn’t interest for whatever reason."

"Then we would take them to market but I think that is very unlikely."

Cllr David Daniels, the executive member for communities, housing and anti-poverty, said: “From a housing perspective, I welcome it very much because prioritising the RSLs who have a good track record, as far as Victor and Veronica have already said, at delivering good quality, affordable homes, particularly in the current climate we are in at the moment.

“We are in a difficult time housing-wise – this is very welcome.

“The added benefit of it potentially fetching market value so then being re-invested into 21st Century Schools is fantastic and then on top of that the fact they would be built on brownfield sites as opposed to greenfield sites – it’s ticked multiple boxes.”