Welsh language campaigners have vowed to submit a formal complaint about Ceredigion County Council over plans to shut four Welsh-medium village primary schools.

Ysgol Llangwyryfon, Ysgol Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn, Ysgol Syr John Rhys and Ysgol Craig yr Wylfa are all under threat of closure, and campaign group Cymdeithas Yr Iaith said that if Cabinet members on Tuesday, 3 September vote for consultations to close the schools, they would “immediately submit a complaint to the Minister for Education that the council is not fulfilling its educational duties and is going against the School Organisation Code.”

Ffred Ffransis of the Cymdeithas yr Iaith Education Group said: “Not only are Ceredigion Council intent on undermining a number of Welsh-speaking communities and emptying them of younger families, but the whole process is also completely contrary to the presumption in favour of maintaining rural schools which is an essential part of the 2018 edition of the Schools Organisation Code.

“Ceredigion have looked at these schools in the context of trying to make immediate savings to their budget.

“If the Minister allowed Ceredigion to get away with this blatant disregard of the principle of presumption in favour of rural schools, then the whole government policy would be discredited.”