WREXHAM'S MP has urged a rethink on the location of a new 210-pupil Welsh medium school.

Earlier this week Wrexham Council's executive board gave the green light to proposals for the primary school, which will have its permanent base on the site of Borras Park Infants School.

The plans were broadly welcomed by councillors at a meeting on Tuesday, as they said it would address the increasing demand for Welsh language places.

However, the town's MP Ian Lucas is now calling on the council to reconsider its location, describing it as 'unsuitable'.

He said: "I fully support the idea of building a new Welsh language school in Wrexham but the problem I have is with the proposed location on Borras Park Road.

“I can’t see how a relatively small residential street will handle the increase in traffic – particularly at school opening and closing time – and am not surprised residents have raised objections.”

The authority said it would aim to address traffic and parking concerns by making improvements to the Borras site, including additional parking and a new parent and taxi drop off road.

The start times of both schools will be staggered in a bid to ease traffic, while efforts are also being made to encourage children to walk to school

However, Mr Lucas claimed that staggered start times will have a ‘negligible’ effect and plans for walking buses would be ‘inadequate’.

He said: “The more parking provision that exists on site, the less land is available for educational use,” he said.

“The overall impression is that of increasingly seeking to put a quart into a pint pot.”

The school will initially be based at the former Hafod Y Wern Infants site in Caia Park during 2019 before moving to Borras following renovations in 2021.

Although the majority of councillors backed the proposals, executive board member Cllr William Baldwin voted against them because of his own concerns about traffic and parking issues.

Speaking previously, the authority's interim chief executive Clare Field acknowledged the issues raised and appealed for more parents to walk their children to school.

She said: "One of the major objections at the time was not to the seed school, but where it's going to move later on and it's around transport and the issue of parents dropping children off and creating more traffic.

"That's always an issue because many parents do insist on taking their children to school in a car, even if perhaps they only live round the corner.

"We do need to encourage the crocodile walks, where children walk together, but that was a major issue for us.

"Most people though are very happy that we have English and Welsh medium schools and they're just interested in good quality education."