Campaigners fighting to save village schools under threat of closure in Powys were in Cardiff today to present a 2,500-signature petition to the Welsh Assembly Government.

Members of Powys Community Schools Action have been collecting support since July and were backed in Cardiff today by Mid Wales AMs Mick Bates, Kirsty Williams and Alun Davies.

The action group was formed and its petition launched after a review of primary education in Powys began earlier this year with six schools in the county singled out by Powys County Council for possible closure.

The council’s board has since approved the closure of Llangurig in the north of Powys and Howey and Pontneathvaughan in the south.

Llanwddyn and Llanfihangel are currently being reviewed, while Carno will be considered along with other schools in the Machynlleth and west Montgomeryshire area next year.

The petition was being presented to Val Lloyd AM, chairman of the Assembly’s petitions committee, and calls for the Assembly Government to “sustain the communities of Powys, the most rural of Welsh counties, and to halt and reverse the pressure on Powys County Council to close the schools which are the heart of those communities”.

An action group spokesman said: “Rural communities in Wales are constantly threatened with loss of facilities and services and the closure of small schools is the latest in a long line.

“Powys County Council, under pressure from the Welsh Assembly Government and education watchdog Estyn, has started an ill-considered panic programme of closures of community schools.”