Welsh language campaigners have questioned Gwynedd council's consultation processes over the future of Welsh-medium village Schools, following another official recommendation to close a small school in Gwynedd.On Thursday (24/2), Gwynedd's Education and Young People's Scrutiny Committee will consider official advice to proceed with the closure of Ysgol y Parc near Bala by September 2012.The plan is included a 138-page document to be presented to the committee following a statutory consultation which ended on the 4th February - Cymdeithas suspect that officers have drawn up the report well before the end of the consultation period, thus making it a vacuous exercise.Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg education spokesperson, Ffred Ffransis, said:"Dozens of responses were received to the Council's consultation document over the future of Ysgol Y Parc, including the detailed Cymdeithas response which ran into thousands of words. Are we expected to believe that officers succeeded within 10 working days to analyse all these responses, evaluate the ideas put forward, form conclusions and then write a 138-page report ? It seems obvious that they reached their conclusions and wrote most of the report even before the consultation period had ended. What's the point of the consultation exercise?""We have proof that all the responses were not examined thoroughly as the officers do not even refer to the two key objections raised by Cymdeithas yr Iaith in our detailed paper which was presented three days before the end of the consultation period. Cymdeithas noted firstly that the Council had not even considered one option which would have met all their aims through the creation of an integrated Penllyn Federation of the rural primary schools and the new Lifelong Learning Centre in Bala. Such a model would have produced far more financial savings, would have offered a sustainable future for all the rural schools, and would have strengthened the Council's application for investment in Bala town by producing an innovative scheme with universal approval."

"Secondly, the officers' report makes no mention at all of the Case Study, presented by Cymdeithas, of how a similar Welsh-speaking rural community was undermined within a decade through the closure of its school in the centre of the community and the resultant ebb away of youth culture. Indeed if the community in Parc which is 90%+ Welsh-speaking, and has an integrated school and community centre, cannot convince the Council of the social need for the school then there's not much point in other communities even trying. The whole system of Community Impact Assesments is thrown into disrepute and would become just a source of income for consutants."Referring to the vote in the Committee on Thursday, Mr Ffransis concluded,"Closing Ysgol y Parc would not change the language of the classroom, but members of the Scrutiny Committee should be fully aware that they would be voting to undermine one of the strongest Welsh-speaking rural communities in the county."