More than £8m has been cut from education in one North Wales county over the last four years.

Primary schools in Conwy have taken the biggest brunt of the funding reductions, losing around £4.9m. Secondary schools have lost out on around £2.5m.

And the county’s only dedicated additional learning needs school, Ysgol y Gogarth, has also seen a £643,787 cut in that time.

Now a county councillor is calling on the Welsh Government to stop cutting the grant they give to councils so more can be done for education in the county.

Llanrwst county councillor Aaron Wynne, said that schools in his area have been left looking for cash from other sources to plug the funding gap.

He said:  “Both Llanrwst Schools have faced cuts of over half a million pounds in funding between them in four years. In order to pay for necessary resources such as educational books, IT upgrades and stationary, both Ysgol Bro Gwydir and Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy have resorted to applying for external funding and grants.

“Staffing levels are also at an all-time low. Headteachers are warning that they will no longer be able to robustly provide students with the full curriculum if cuts are to persist.”

He added: “Over the last four years our children and teachers in Conwy have been undermined by systematic cuts to school budgets.

“The current arrangement for funding schools and education in Wales has failed and needs an imminent overhaul.

“Headteachers in the county have already warned that further redundancies will be made, class sizes will get larger and school buildings will fall into disrepair, if funding arrangements aren’t rapidly changed.

“This is an issue which is replicated right across Wales. It will therefore take a nation-wide approach to find a solution.

“The Welsh government must recognise that their continued cuts to the local government settlement has subsequently lead to underfunded schools. This needs to change.”

But the Welsh Government blamed UK wide spending policies for the problems.

A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: “The UK Government’s sustained austerity agenda has led to substantial cuts to Wales’ overall budget.

“In spite of this, we continue to prioritise education spending, which is why we recently announced the single biggest investment in teachers since devolution – a £24m package of professional learning to help raise standards in the classroom.”

A UK Government Spokesman said: “In the last UK Budget more than £550 million of extra money was given to the Welsh Government, meaning its budget will have grown to over £16.1 billion by 2020.

“As a devolved matter, allocating a proportion of these funds for education in Wales is the responsibility of the Welsh Government.”