Six Bells school: Blaenau Gwent council in £800k sewer search

Six Bells Primary School is due to open in 2019

An extra £800,000 has been stumped up to pay for work on a new £7.5m school after plans could not specify the exact location of a sewer on the site.

Six Bells Primary School will house 360 pupils when it opens in 2019.

Blaenau Gwent council approved the cash after Welsh Water information could not specify the location of the sewer, which may need to be rerouted.

Welsh Water said it would "work closely with the local authority to ensure the project is completed successfully".

The new building is part of a 21st Century schools development project and will replace the existing Bryngwyn and Queen Street primary schools.

The council received Welsh Government money to build the school, but took the initial decision to fund any extra work from its own capital programme budget.

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Queen Street Primary School is one of two primary schools being replaced by Six Bells

Work is set to start on the school this spring and finish in summer 2019.

Six Bells, near Abertillery, will also be home to a 60-place nursery and nine places for children with additional learning needs.

A council spokeswoman said: "As part of pre-build early site investigations, it came to light that there may be potential work required on a Welsh Water sewer running underneath the site, which may require diversion.

"The pre-build site investigations are part of the due diligence that needs to be carried out with a development of this scale."

It is understood the council had a rough location of the sewer, but needed to carry out the extra investigation work in order to find it.

The council has agreed to pursue talks with Welsh Government about any additional costs incurred.

A Welsh Water spokeswoman said it had ensured the council had "been able to progress with their construction activities while also planning the work required to redirect one of our pipes which runs through the site".