Blaenavon Community Campus
Latest News
During w/c 30 May (half term holidays), work commenced on Ton Mawr Road to install the foul drainage system for the new school and leisure element of the campus. The works required a temporary road closure on Ton Mawr Road from the junction with Middle CoedCae Road, up the hill past the entrance to Arthur Jenkins nursing home. It was intended that the works would be finished by the end of the half term holidays.
During works, a Welsh Water main was discovered running through a culvert and this needs to be diverted. The diversion could only be undertaken by Welsh Water. The road was re-opened by Friday 10 June.
Access to the nursing home and the houses opposite remained available from the north of the construction site only, that is travelling down Ton Mawr Road and following a signposted diversion. A copy of the plan of works for Ton Mawr Road| is available to view here. Full use of Ton Mawr Road was re-instated once the foul drainage was installed.
Copies of the latest school plans are available to view in the Community Updates - New School| area of the website.
What is it?
The Blaenavon Community Campus is a £18 million integrated development that will provide a wide range of community services for the residents of Blaenavon and the surrounding North Torfaen and Heads of the Valley area. It will have a strong community focus and will deliver best value for money by improving integration between key public bodies.
The Campus is being delivered by Torfaen County Borough Council and Aneurin Bevan Health Board who are committed to providing modern, high quality and flexible services. The campus therefore represents a unique opportunity for a number of public bodies to work collaboratively to develop services that are modern, effective and efficient. The public bodies involved will share costs for planning, design, commissioning, building and the final delivery of those services. This is not co-location, but true service integration to deliver shared objectives.
It will provide:
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A new 130-place nursery and 450-place all through primary community focussed school with group rooms, external play areas and adult learning capacity to help improve the employability of local people;
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The school will be physically linked to community leisure facilities that will include a 2-court sports hall, dance studio, fitness suite and external multi-use games area;
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The school and leisure facilities will be aesthetically linked and therefore complemented by a Primary Care Resource Centre including a new doctors surgery, pharmacy, dentistry, physiotherapy, chiropody, therapeutic, wellbeing and prevention services (such as dietetics, sexual health, weight management, drug/alcohol abuse), child health and peri-natal clinics, long term conditions management, screening services and space for patient groups to meet;
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At the heart of these buildings will be a wide range of community services such as a Council customer care point providing council tax advice and information, cash receipting, access to the police and community safety, a range of advocacy services such as tax advice, and credit union advice. These shared spaces will contain meeting and interview rooms for health and wellbeing promotion and general community group use. The Communities First team may use the facility for events and promotions;
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Sure Start and Flying Start programmes will be designed in from the very beginning and will be situated on the school site.
Moreover, it is hoped the Campus will directly lead to other much needed housing development. The campus has already led to investment through re-location of the local football team (in collaboration with the team), who were supported to pursue their aspiration of creating a football centre of excellence.
The attached block diagrams| were submitted for the outline planning application and give an aerial view of the whole site. The school/leisure element has changed and a new site| plan is now available.