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Welsh medium education in Cardiff is a huge success story, but for far too long that success has turned into problems for children in the greater Canton area.

As a former chair of the local authority’s Welsh Medium Education Committee, and the first ever chair of governors at Ysgol Treganna I hope that I’ve been able to play a part in establishing Welsh medium provision in the area. Now we need a solution which provides for the future.

Cardiff Council have now come forward with a plan which would see a new school built and expansion in other, existing provision. I support that plan – but the council needs to do more to make it clear, formally and officially, that this plan is its top priority for capital funding in the future.

Even when the new school goes ahead, the demand for Welsh medium education is likely to out-grow its capacity. The Labour Party principle has always been clear: any family wishing to have education through the medium of Welsh is entitled to have that wish supplied.

Of course, as numbers grow in primary schools, so the need for places in secondary schools rises. At the time of writing, at the end of February 2011, the City Council are out to consultation on new catchment areas for secondary schools, once the third Welsh medium school (on the site of the present St Teilo’s school) opens its doors in September 2012. This is definitely one to watch. The proposals involve, for example, designating Ysgol Treganna as a feeder school to Ysgol Plasmawr, and Pwll Coch as a feeder school to Ysgol Glantaf. At present, pressure on places at Treganna mean that families can have children at both Treganna and Pwll Coch. We’ll see how the consultation unfolds, but the current proposals would appear to institutionalise that problem beyond primary school and into secondary education too.