Crappy concrete crisis

[Crispy]

At my place, the main assembly hall is riddled with asbestos. A couple of years ago, it was decided that it's safer/cheaper to leave it there rather than try and remove it. The whole roof was sealed and nobody's mentioned it since.

This is a totally reasonable thing to do. Asbestos is only dangerous as loose fibres in the air, which all asbestos removal will create, so the safest thing is often to secure any loose edges/surfaces and document it well so it doesn't get disturbed. I've worked on building projects with money-no-object budgets that have left asbestos in place.

This raac business though is exactly what I've come to expect of this country's public services. Penny wise, pound foolish and all of it run like a publicly traded company focused on quarterly returns.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Yep that's the thick short-sighted policy: just hope that things don't collapse.

I think collapse is part of the plan tbh. Certainly is with healthcare.

 

[two sheds]

Yep all us cheapskates should be going private like they do

 

[SpookyFrank]

This is a totally reasonable thing to do. Asbestos is only dangerous as loose fibres in the air, which all asbestos removal will create, so the safest thing is often to secure any loose edges/surfaces and document it well so it doesn't get disturbed. I've worked on buliding projects with money-no-object budgets that have left asbestos in place.

This raac business though is exactly what I've come to expect of this country's public services. Penny wise, pound foolish and all of it run like a publicly traded company focused on quarterly returns.

There will be buildings where the presence of RAAC means they also have to remove asbestos. Because obviously you can't leave the asbestos undisturbed if the building falls down.

 

[PR1Berske]

I only see the close 'x' button. Care to elaborate?

"Jonathan Slater, who was the top civil servant at the Department for Education from May 2016 to August 2020, tells the Today programme a survey of schools was carried out about 10 years ago and a second was commissioned in his time. These showed the the scale of the rebuilding programme needed.

According to that, 300 to 400 schools needed to be repaired per year "because of the system the schools were built with was post-war concrete and it was only supposed to live for 30-40 years".

When they went to the Treasury, they got funding to rebuild 100 schools per year.

"It was frustrating when your priority was safety," he says.

Slater says the education department saw the benefits of the program but "the challenge was to face the chancellor".

In 2021, they wanted to be realistic and asked the government to double the 100 schools to 200.

"We know 300 to 400 needed, but the actual ask in 2021 was to double the 100 to 200. I thought we'd get it but the actual decision made in 2021 was to halve down from 100 a year to 50 year," he adds.

And he reminds the programme that the chancellor then wa"s Rishi Sunak.

 

[MickiQ]

"Jonathan Slater, who was the top civil servant at the Department for Education from May 2016 to August 2020, tells the Today programme a survey of schools was carried out about 10 years ago and a second was commissioned in his time. These showed the the scale of the rebuilding programme needed.

According to that, 300 to 400 schools needed to be repaired per year "because of the system the schools were built with was post-war concrete and it was only supposed to live for 30-40 years".

When they went to the Treasury, they got funding to rebuild 100 schools per year.

"It was frustrating when your priority was safety," he says.

Slater says the education department saw the benefits of the program but "the challenge was to face the chancellor".

In 2021, they wanted to be realistic and asked the government to double the 100 schools to 200.

"We know 300 to 400 needed, but the actual ask in 2021 was to double the 100 to 200. I thought we'd get it but the actual decision made in 2021 was to halve down from 100 a year to 50 year," he adds.

And he reminds the programme that the chancellor then wa"s Rishi Sunak.

Wow this is my shocked face

 

[krtek a houby]

Feckless parents? Care to explain?

Good luck with that

 

[Storm Fox]

Just amazing.
Totally delusional.



Surely even the most dedicated Tory shithead isn't going to buy that excuse.

 

[InArduisFouette]

This material having a life expectancy of 30 years, is that something people only figured out after roofs started collapsing or did they know at the time of construction that the buildings were sort of temporary?

the lifespan would have been known about to a degree at the time, the problem with RAAC comes from the fact it's failure modes aren't easily seen as when reinforcing rods start to corrode in normal reinforced concrete you get cracking and spalling of the concrete as there is no room for the expansion of the corroded rebar, because RAAC has air bubbles - the reinforcements cordode and expand ( as rust takes up more space than just the iron/ steel ) but there isn't the signs you get with normal reinforced concrete ... eventually the rebar rusts through so much it gives up and then the whole concete unit could just fail like that

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Just amazing.
Totally delusional.

View attachment 390167

Surely even the most dedicated Tory shithead isn't going to buy that excuse.

50 schools a year over ten years? I assume if I check I'll find there are 500 schools in the UK.

 

[InArduisFouette]

There's also finding space for kids from hundreds of schools somewhere else. Our nearest is slammed as it is. Couldn't suddenly take on another schools pupils.

a school can be 'full' and offering it;s normal curriculum, but as you see for exams etc, the gym, the sports, hall, the assembly hall , thge library can be converted to other uses , also some spaces in schools might sub divided e.g. the junior school i went to could split it;s school hall 2/3rds / 1/3rd with big sliding dividers ot make a smaller hall and ab extra classroom

 

[Storm Fox]

50 schools a year over ten years? I assume if I check I'll find there are 500 schools in the UK.

32,163 schools

How many schools are there in the UK? There are currently 32,163 schools in the UK. Of these, 3,079 are nurseries or early-learning centres, 20,806 are primary schools, 23 are middle schools and 4,190 are secondary schools.

So let be fair and subtract the nurseries as these can tend to be moved to less specialised building and also subtract the 2600 private schools so that leaves a total of 26,484.

26,484 / 50 = 529 Years

529 is the number of years it would take to refurbish all the schools at the current rate at Rishi 'It's not my fault' Sunak's plan.

 

[newme]

a school can be 'full' and offering it;s normal curriculum, but as you see for exams etc, the gym, the sports, hall, the assembly hall , thge library can be converted to other uses , also some spaces in schools might sub divided e.g. the junior school i went to could split it;s school hall 2/3rds / 1/3rd with big sliding dividers ot make a smaller hall and ab extra classroom

My primary was like 70 people stuffed into three classes lol so I may have a skewed perspective on it. My son just left his primary and that had 5 classrooms which were all full. The gym, sports hall and assembly hall are all the same room and going on when they did eg school plays. You can fit about 50 chairs in them but that's with no desks so more like 20-25 looking at the layout of other classes, if the kids need desks and the ability to get up from them too.

 

[two sheds]

So let be fair and subtract the nurseries as these can tend to be moved to less specialised building and also subtract the 2600 private schools so that leaves a total of 26,484.

26,484 / 50 = 529 Years

529 is the number of years it would take to refurbish all the schools at the current rate at Rishi 'It's not my fault' Sunak's plan.

Don't exaggerate most of them will have fallen down well before then.

 

[newme]

Don't exaggerate most of them will have fallen down well before then.

Yeh given a 50 year replacement schedule it needs to be about 500 a year to keep up.

 

[Storm Fox]

Don't exaggerate most of them will have fallen down well before then.

Well, actually in the next few years TBH.

I'm going to assume the Tories will be blaming Labour from day one if they win the next election.
I'm surprised they haven't tried pre-blaming the next Labour government already. It only makes a little less sense the blaming the Labour Government from 13years ago,

 

[InArduisFouette]

My primary was like 70 people stuffed into three classes lol so I may have a skewed perspective on it. My son just left his primary and that had 5 classrooms which were all full. The gym, sports hall and assembly hall are all the same room and going on when they did eg school plays. You can fit about 50 chairs in them but that's with no desks so more like 20-25 looking at the layout of other classes, if the kids need desks and the ability to get up from them too.

the junior school I went to was built in the ?50s / 60s as the 'new' primary school for the village with 5 classrooms (replacing a Victorian two room and double ww1 army hut village school) , the school hall was probably the size of a tennis court / maybe not quite a basketball court ,

by the late 1980s it had acquired a permanent sixth classroom replacing a mobile / hut and the former kitchen ( this being Lincolnshire who dropped school dinners at primary the moment Maggie T said they could) had been turned into a 7th class room, about 180 -200 on roll as Juniors , becasue additionally a 5, later 6 classroom ( again Kitchen turned into a classroom) infant school had been built in the 1970s on one of the new estates as the primary school didn;t necessarily have the space to expand that much without a complete rebuild ... (where i suspect the land if not the building for the infat school came from a predecessor of S106 type stuff

 

[Storm Fox]

The BBC now have Sunak's soundbite. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-...f5bad696ad8677126b0b5b&pinned_post_type=share
Which he basically says. 'I announced new money to refurbish 50 schools; this is consistent with what has happened in the past.'

So not really new money, just a continuation of existing expenditure.

 

[gosub]

Well, actually in the next few years TBH.

I'm going to assume the Tories will be blaming Labour from day one if they win the next election.
I'm surprised they haven't tried pre-blaming the next Labour government already. It only makes a little less sense the blaming the Labour Government from 13years ago,

Hitler fault innit. If we hadn't of had a war we wouldn't have had baby boomers and the need for schools in a hurry

 

[two sheds]

And toilets in the overspill schools can double up as one-to-one tutorial rooms teachers just have no imagination

 

[SpookyFrank]

Just amazing.
Totally delusional.

View attachment 390167

Surely even the most dedicated Tory shithead isn't going to buy that excuse.

Looking forward to finding out how it's all something to do with people in boats somehow.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Hitler fault innit. If we hadn't of had a war we wouldn't have had baby boomers and the need for schools in a hurry

Weren't for the boomers though, there'd be no endless tory misrule.

 

[platinumsage]

 

[Storm Fox]

Always assume guns and microphones are always live, and either can have a suboptimal impact on your day.

 

[wtfftw]

Can't read any twitter stuff for a while. Please screenshot.

https://www.itv.com/news/2023-09-04/keegan-recorded-saying-others-have-been-sat-on-their-as-on-raac-crisis

 

[Bingoman]

Shes also going to appear on the new Sophy ridge show on sky news tonight

 

[equationgirl]

Apart from schools and hospitals are there any other buildings with this concrete at risk?

Libraries, possibly, university buildings, social housing, office buildings. Anything of the time period 1950s to 1990s built out of concrete could be at risk.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Nobody ever tells me I'm doing a good job either.

 

[klang]

don't think I've ever done a good job tbh.

 

[equationgirl]

This has resulted from a typical attitude toward maintenance - maintenance is often seen as optional and maintenance budgets get trimmed year after year. It's very much a 'well I won't be here when the shit hits the fan' attitude.