Forum Topic

Who built them?

With all the furore about RAAC public buildings has anyone yet published the lust of who commissioned the works.Local authority, national government in what years and under which party.Would be interesting to be able to put some of the blame that's flying around into context.

Andy Pike ● 1155d25 Comments

The list

Andy Pike ● 1155d

"Would be interesting to be able to put some of the blame that's flying around into context."Don't worry, it'll land up on Labour eventually.Andy Zaltzman on The News Quiz, R4:-"To me 'crumbly concrete' is right up there in the combinations of words which should not be allowed to happen along with 'soluble submarine' ... "

David Ainsworth ● 1155d

Woukd be embarrassing if it did David after Captain hindsihgts performance at pmqs

Andy Pike ● 1155d

Well, as the news indicated the RAAC was used in the 80s and 90s, I would suggest that 2 Conservative governments and two Labour ones, don't you think?As for local authorities, I do not know - too many to look into for a very long time!

Ivonne Holliday ● 1155d

Thought it more 50s through the 70s but will bow to knowledge.In any event if its use was authorised by govt of both parties and probably councils captain  Hindsight had imperfect hindsight last week. Surely that's impossible to do !

Andy Pike ● 1155d

I'm not sure the problem was necessarily the use of RAAC per se but the failure to recognise it had a limited lifespan and needed to be monitored towards end of life. For example, Heathrow and Gatwick Airports know they have RAAC in some buildings but seem confident they are managing and mitigating the risks involved, as do some universities who have estate management (and materials technology) departments. Yes, both parties were in power at various times during the construction of buildings using RAAC but only the Conservatives were in power during the past thirteen years when the management and mitigation of buildings with RAAC was needed - and apparently cancelled the previous labour government's plans for repairing and rebuilding a number of schools.

Michael Ixer ● 1155d

There is also all the asbestos in buildings where the best method of dealing with it was decided to be to leave it undisturbed: -  but children are boisterous, teachers will want to pin their students' work up on walls as part of inspirational teaching and may often prepare their classrooms for the new term during holidays - a time when building and remedial work is scheduled and plumbers may be unaware.  Mesothelioma can take many years to become apparent but as working careers are lengthened it will become more noticeable and ptoblematic.I've heard one school has both problems - RAAC and asbestos - which will make safe action more difficult  - and hope there aren't too many buildings in the same state.

Philippa Bond ● 1155d

Ah the building schools for the future programme. As far as I'm aware none ( or very few) of the ones identified with RAAC issues were part of that programme and even if they were RAAC specifically was not mentioned as an issue.Indeed it was largely the big Victorian built schools that were identified in that programme. Precisely the schools that had been properly constructed with no concrete  no asbestos but looked a little bit ' workhousey'.But, never let a good story get in the way of the truth eh.At least if it was anything to do with Austerity then the buffoon Ed Davey can shut up as he and Danny Alexander were committed followers of that policy.Or do they think we have forgotten their time in government. How many knighthoods was it?

Andy Pike ● 1155d

Interesting info and where the schools which have been listed so far are located: A recent Guardian analysis has revealed that a staggering 109 of the 147 schools affected by the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) debacle are nestled comfortably in Conservative constituencies. That's a whopping three-quarters! And if that wasn't enough to raise eyebrows, 36 of these schools are in the seats of government frontbenchers, with 13 of them being cabinet members. Essex seems to be the epicentre of this concrete calamity, with 53 schools on the list, accounting for over 30,000 students. This is almost a third of all affected pupils. Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, might be feeling the heat as eight schools in her Saffron Walden constituency in Essex are affected. Nick

Nicholas Evans ● 1155d

How come you managed not to mistype "pmqs"?

David Ainsworth ● 1155d

An element people are forgetting is what happened after 1945. There was a huge expansion of primary and especially secondary schooling, thanks to the post-war government's enlightened educational policies. Not only was there a need for new school buildings - they had to be larger than in the past, and RAAC, which was cheaper than standard concrete and was being touted in Scandinavia, where it was developed, was a tempting material both for governments and builders. One imagines that after six years of war a projected 30-year lifespan for a building material seemed at that time like an eternity.

Alexander MacLeod ● 1155d

For the record, according to the Architects Journal, the government cancelled rebuilds at 13 schools affected by RAAC in 2010. These were originally in the Building Schools for the Future Programme set up by the last Labour Administration. https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/government-cancelled-rebuilds-at-13-raac-affected-schools.The potential danger of collapse due to RAAC structures was highlighted in 2018 when a school staffroom ceiling collapsed in Kent. And in 2019 the Standing Committee on Structural Safety issued a cross-industry alert warning about RAAC. (See RIBA article at https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/knowledge-landing-page/raac-concrete-in-schools-questions-for-architects#:~:text=RAAC%20has%20been%20used%20in,loadbearing%20and%20non%2Dloadbearing%20arrangements.)

Catherine Schade ● 1155d

Yes, that was my point below. In the late 1940s-1950s it wasn't unreasonable to use a material like RAAC to construct quickly and cheaply buildings that were desperately needed but had a limited life span . (I can remember discussing this with a civil engineer student when I was at university in the early 70s. It didn't seem unreasonable to build, for example, science laboratories that would only last three decades as different facilities would be needed as science changed and progressed over a decade or two. Just think, how many times have CERN built new particle accelerators or upgraded them, and in the 1950s no schools and few universities needed IT facilities and labs.) What went wrong is that there was no planned maintenance, refurbishment and replacement strategy for public buildings with limited lifespans.

Michael Ixer ● 1155d

Hello Andy and Alexander,I apologize for the response I gave you regarding dates for the use of RAAC.  I quoted an article I had read in a newspaper.  I then Googled the question this morning.You are correct, RAAC was used from the 1950s to mid 1990s. (https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/knowledge-landing-page/raac-concrete-in-schools-questions-for-architects#:~:text=RAAC%20was%20used%20widely%20in,easy%2Dto%2Duse%20form.I also looked up the governments from  the 1950s to today. Please, I am not being pedantic in the least, but I list them below for ease of reference.Second half of the 20th century:Sir Winston Churchill - Conservative - 1951 - 1955Sir Anthony Eden - Conservative - 1955 - 1957Harold Macmillan - Conservative - 1957 - 1963Sir Alec Douglas-Home - Conservative - 1963 - 1964Harold Wilson - Labour - 1964 - 1970Sir Edward Heath - Conservative - 1970 - 1974Harold Wilson - Labour - 1974 - 1976James Callaghan - Labour - 1974 - 1979Margaret Thatcher - Conservative - 1979 - 1990Sir John Major - Conservative - 1990 - 1997Tony Blair - Labour - 1997 - 200721st century:Gordon Brown - Labour - 2007 - 2010David Cameron - Conservative - 2010 - 2016Theresa May - Conservative - 2016 - 2019Boris Johnson - Conservative - 2019 - 2022Liz Truss - Conservative - 2022 - 2022Rishi Sunak - Conservative - 2022 to datehttps://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministersThe reason for listing them is that it makes it easier to count the PMs and my thoughts are as follows.  From the 1950s to today, there have been 12 Conservative Prime Ministers and 5 Labour Prime Ministers.  And yes, I omitted Clement Atlee - Labour - as he left office in 1951.That is quite a statistic!

Ivonne Holliday ● 1155d

Hello Alexander and Andy, of course!Please see my reply at 11:27am today.  Got lost in the middle of all the messages!!  :-) :-) :-)

Ivonne Holliday ● 1154d

Quite a statistic but no nearer tying down exactly who commissioned the builds, bearing in mind many would have been built by local authorities.Without someone looking at each affected building and listing who approved the materials in the specification it's all conjecture.I was hoping that there was a definitive list to back up Starmers claims. Surely he must have one, surely .

Andy Pike ● 1154d

"I was hoping that there was a definitive list to back up Starmers claims. Surely he must have one, surely ."Well, if he can't produce one, you had better do so.

David Ainsworth ● 1154d

Well, Andy,If you must know, please see the following link the lists the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, only since 1974.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Under-Secretary_of_State_for_HousingPerhaps you could provide a clearer list of people in charge of housing in the UK.  This is as far as I go.I know you hate Starmer, but the truth is that Conservative governments since the 50s seems to have taken the easiest and least expensive route.I very much look forward to your comments and hopefully, correcting me if I am mistaken.

Ivonne Holliday ● 1154d

Another interesting list, but nothing definitive that identifies who and when commissioned these buildings. Also I think most were commissioned prior to 1974.Maybe we'll never be able to pin it down.

Andy Pike ● 1154d

Well, let us start by saying you have not provided any information than enlightened us more.The RAAC started in the 1950s....  It had a 30 year life span. The fact that it was used till the 1990s is revealing.  What is enlightening above anything else is that schools apparently are responsible to oversee its useful life, not the politicians or civil servant or the architects or other professionals who did so - or their successors.Hospitals have the same problem (some wards in SW London hospitals had sewage sipping into them) so we must assume that all the so-called experts in local authorities as in government became blind-folded to the problem.The question we must answer is how can this *** mess be remedied!  And it does not involve political parties but so-called specialists!

Ivonne Holliday ● 1154d

I was asking the question. If I had the answer I wouldnt have asked.but if you say the solution is not a  political issue then one wonders why starmer was getting so het up.Happy to accept that the responsibility for building them transcends any one political party and like asbestos and other construction defects ( twa,bison,etc) this was another accepted material that seemed a good idea at the time.It will need politicians to allocate funds to put right though at some point  once the survey results are known and the extent of the immediate problem is known.

Andy Pike ● 1154d

It is not a question of looking to see which party was in power when they were built, in order to get the Tories off the hook.  These buildings were no doubt built under Governments of both parties at a time when this sort of concrete was considered safe.  More relevant questions are: what has been done since 2018 when the problem with this sort of concrete in schools first came to prominence; and whether many of the affected school buildings would still be in use if the schools' rebuilding programme that was in place before 2010 hadn't been scaled-back by the Tories in Government since then.  Scrabbling around to shift blame won't do any good. That's got nothing to do with "hindsight".  It has everything to do with holding the current Government accountable for the consequences of its actions - quite normal in a democracy!

David Beeney ● 1146d

That would be true if the schools for the future programme included these buildings en Massey. No doubt we'll find some that were in that programme, but was it because the local authority with responsibility for their maintenance had bid specifically to repair RAAC ? Or was it a bid to upgrade and extend on the existing site.

Andy Pike ● 1146d

Sorry,  couldn't resist this ...

Michael Ixer ● 1145d

I am not answering to anybody in particular, but got very exasperated halfway down reading this thread!Instead of engaging in largely now irrelevant political grandstanding and Whataboutism, wouldn't it be a good idea to lobby your current government to do something about it now - before any of the schools or hospitals actually collapse!  Fault will be decided by the electorate at large at the next election - hopefully.

Ellen Bernfeld ● 1142d