England’s concrete crisis could extend to hospitals and courts, experts say

Labour demands urgent audit of government’s handling of longstanding concerns about Raac

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/02/uk-concrete-crisis-raac-problems-could-extend-to-hospitals-and-courts-experts-say

Amy Walker

Sat 2 Sep 2023 12.10 BST

England’s growing buildings crisis could expand beyond schools to other public buildings such as hospitals and courts, experts have said.

More than 100 schools were forced to partially or fully close this week after a dramatic escalation of the government’s approach towards crumbling concrete.

Labour has demanded an urgent audit of the government’s handling of longstanding concerns about reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac).

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The Labour MP Meg Hillier, who chairs the public accounts committee, said Raac was “the tip of the iceberg” of maintenance issues within the school estate.

Writing for the Times, she said the state of some public buildings was “jaw-dropping”.

She questioned why the situation had been “left to deteriorate for so long”, telling Times Radio: “In both schools and hospitals, there hasn’t been enough money going into buildings and equipment.”

She said the costs of working around the problems – using props to support existing structures and conducting surveys on affected areas - were “eye-watering and wasteful when you think about the problems in the NHS at the moment”.

“The cost of doing it is enormous. We’re talking millions of pounds to survey a roof in a corridor in order to make sure they know where the problems are,” she said. “Every time another problem arises, they have to go back and do another survey.”

Newsnight revealed on Friday that it had seen reports from as far back as 1961 about aerated concrete concerns.

Raac, a lightweight building material, was commonly used in panel-form in public building construction from the 1950s to mid-1990s. It is estimated to have a lifespan of 30 years, and many structures have now passed that age.

Chris Goodier, a professor of construction engineering and materials at Loughborough University, said “the scale of the problem is much bigger than schools”.

Matthew Byatt, the head of the Institution of Structural Engineers, said any high-rise buildings with flat roofs constructed between the late 1960s and early 1990s could contain Raac.

Ministers have so far refused to publish the names of the affected schools or 34 other public buildings identified as containing Raac.

They include 24 hospitals, seven court buildings and four Department for Work and Pensions facilities. Harrow crown court was reportedly forced to close last week because of the presence of Raac.

There have been repeated calls for action, including from councils, on the material after a primary school roof collapsed in Kent in 2018.