The concrete crisis that has forced close 156 UK schools At the start of the course – and which may also affect dozens of hospitals – it has hit the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, accused of not financing the renovation of public buildings in his previous stage as Treasury secretary.
The collapse occurred in the middle of summer in a school, built with “autoclaved reinforced aerated” lightweight concrete (RAAC, for its acronym in English), prompted the urgent review of dozens of public schools, built during the seventies, due to the risk of collapse.
“It is frustrating that this has happened precisely at this time,” Sunak acknowledged, referring to the return to schools. “But I want to give people a real sense of the scale of the problem: we have 22,000 public schools in England, and 95% will not be affected”.
In the light of Sunak’s statements, it follows that the problem could eventually affect more than a thousand schools, without taking into account the ongoing review of hospitals and public buildings where security panels have been used. RAAC.
“We are facing a metaphor for the abandonment with which the ‘Tories’ have punished public education in the last 13 years,” warned the Labor deputy Bridget Phillipson. “I was at school when we had another Conservative government (John Major). I know what happens when schools are falling apart, with buckets of water to collect the leaks, due to lack of investment for their maintenance.”