School closures due to crumbling concrete

[HoliHormonalTigerLillyTheSecond]

JFC you are kidding me?!

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/31/english-schools-told-to-close-buildings-made-with-crumble-risk-concrete]

Someone will die:(

Possibly but if the powers that be have corporate manslaughter insurance maybe it won't matter too much to those in charge. Still much cheaper to pay out for a few dead people, than actually fix the problem.

Ah my husband is a Civil Servant in Communities/Levellling up/whatever they are calling it these days.

After Grenfell he had to make lists of all buildings in the UK with that particular cladding. I wonder what he will be up to after we return from holiday.

He agreed that "compared to others Gove is known to have a better grasp of policy." He does agree that the bar is very, very low though...

I know the current vibe is violently anti-Tory, and that they are a shit-faced mess of an excuse for a functioning government, but on this occasion the blame lies most with local councils trying to cut corners. The school rebuilding programme fell foul of PFI costs... if they had all been allowed, the costs would still be increasing for another decade.

but on this occasion the blame lies most with local councils trying to cut corners.

Eh? Not the govt who reduced spending on school buildings by 50% between 2010 and 2022?

I know the current vibe is violently anti-Tory, and that they are a shit-faced mess of an excuse for a functioning government, but on this occasion the blame lies most with local councils trying to cut corners.

Why are they trying to cut corners ? their budgets have been absolutely slashed under this Government, they have very little money for the day to day stuff never mind rebuilding a load of schools.

They've known about this for years... years, and they literally couldn't even think to, at a bare minimum, tell schools at the beginning of the summer holidays to give them time to plan something. One friend has been affected by this that I know of but I expect there will be others.

Two estates of council houses near me were pulled down and rebuilt (nicer) because of this concrete issue.

In this case, all private schools in the area of these schools should be made to loan out their facilities for teaching. If they don't have the room, they can provide marquees or gyms.

Will Academy schools be treated differently to those who are under a LA, I think they get their funding direct from the Government ? Do LA's have any responsibility for Academy schools ?

Couldn’t agree more.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bd7953ca-483b-11ee-9359-63e432ab6148?shareToken=7fb60b74ec214783c4b41009149887c0

Abbey Lane Primary School
Sheffield • S8 0BN

Crossflatts Primary
Bingley • BD16 2EP

Eldwick Primary
Bingley • BD16 3LE

Ferryhill Secondary School
Ferryhill • DL17 8RW

Willowbrook Mead Primary Academy
Leicester • LE5 2NA

Parks Primary
Leicester • LE3 9NZ

Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School
London • SW2 5BL

St Andrew's Junior School
Chelmsford • CM3 2JX

Hockley Primary School
Hockley • SS5 4UR

Forres Academy
Moray • IV36 1FG

Cranbourne College
Basingstoke • RG21 3NP

Birchington Church of England Primary School
Birchington • CT7 0AS

Sunny Bank Primary School
Sittingbourne • ME10 3QN

Palmarsh Primary School
Hythe • CT21 6NE

St. James Church of England Primary School
Tunbridge Wells • TN2 3PR

Kingsdown School
Southend-on-Sea • SS2 6XT

Anglo European School
Ingatestone • CM4 0DJ

The Bromfords School
Wickford • SS12 0LZ

Fitzwimarc School
Rayleigh • SS6 8EB

Mistley Norman Church of England Primary School
Manningtree • CO11 1LS

Hockley Primary School
Hockley • SS5 4UR

Springfield Primary
Sunbury-on-Thames • TW16 6LY

there seem to be a lot pdf schools around the Southend area of Essex on the list

I'm there too!

The DfE sent surveys to Headteachers asking us if we knew if we had any buildings made if crumbling concrete....we don't f*ckng know, we have degrees in Education, not building!

There must be hundreds of other schools out there who didn't/ couldn't reply.

Would you prefer to be paying for PFI financed schools as a taxpayer? Looking at the record of improved NHS PFI financed improvements, I am not convinced. A very very costly route to avoid paying now in favour of shunting the costs down a generation.

Would you prefer to be paying for PFI financed schools as a taxpayer?

Was that the only alternative over the last 13 years ?

Yes, that's why the DfE are saying that the schools that are closing are confirmed to have RAAC, implying that other schools don't have RAAC, where the actual answer is that there are a whole bunch of schools that haven't been properly checked and could also collapse at any minute.

Not the govt who reduced spending on school buildings by 50% between 2010 and 2022?

You might have missed the event, but there was a global financial crisis in 2008 that altered the financial possibilities forever. The PFI programme that was supposed to deliver 20 major hospitals and 200 shiny new schools each year was destroyed. And ever since, we have been back to the ancient model... what can we afford to do? All teachers are idealists, I hope, but the system does not have a bottomless pocket.

Oh god. That's true isn't it- there's no way of knowing if a school is safe? Justif it definitely isn't?

You might have missed the event, but there was a global financial crisis in 2008 that altered the financial possibilities forever. The PFI programme that was supposed to deliver 20 major hospitals and 200 shiny new schools each year was destroyed.

No, it wasn't destroyed, it was cancelled. By Michael Gove.

And if you're going to try to pretend that it saved money, look at the situation we are in. Austerity was blatantly a false economy and blaming the financial crash for what has been the political decision to deliberately underfund the public sector for the last 13 years is desperate.

No, @Dymaxion . By 2010, it was bust.

They could have sorted it during lockdown

@EffortlessDesmond if the coffers were so effected by the 2018 global financial crash, why did the last Conservative manifesto state that they would build 40 new hospitals ? Anyone keeping a tally on how many have actually been built ?

Yet there seems to be endless funds for Brexit nonsense and for mates who set up fake PPE firms.

No doubt the tories and their mates will be busy working out how they can make money out of this fiasco. Set up some company that reviews/repairs?

You might have missed the event, but there was a global financial crisis in 2008

Also , if it was a global financial crisis, does that mean it wasn't entirely Gordon Browns fault