By Burak Bir
LONDON (AA) – More than 100 schools and colleges across England have been asked to partially or fully close buildings amid fears of collapse due to risky concrete.
The safety risk has been known at least for five years after a school roof built with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) collapsed in Kent, southeastern England in 2018.
The incident has raised concerns about the safety of not only schools but also other buildings like hospitals built with RAAC, which was used in construction between the 1950s and the mid-1990s.
RAAC, a lightweight, "bubbly" form of concrete, has been described as a "ticking time bomb" by experts in the field, with the material affecting an estimated "half" of the four million non-residential buildings in the UK.
Amid the controversy, more than 100 schools and colleges across England have been told to partially or completely close their buildings.
"This week, the department has contacted all 104 further settings where RAAC is currently confirmed to be present without mitigations in place, to ask them to vacate spaces or buildings that are known to contain RAAC," Department for Education (DfE) said in a statement on Thursday.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told Sky News on Monday that the government will cover the costs of repairing unsafe concrete, adding, "We have three portacabin providers, so we've laid up a stock of portacabins so that people can be prepared quickly to be able to do that if they need temporary accommodation."
Keegan pledged that the DfE would pay for everything.
Meanwhile, the government has admitted that more classrooms may be forced to shut down as the risks of using RAAC building materials are assessed further.
Earlier, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told reporters that 156 schools had been identified as containing RAAC.
On Sunday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said he would "spend what it takes" to address the problem.
Following the developments, the main opposition Labour Party pressed the government, with Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson saying the problem demonstrates how Conservative government cuts have impacted the nation.
"I can think of no more a defining image about the last 13 years of Conservative government than children being sat in classrooms under metal props to prevent the ceilings literally falling in on their heads," she noted.
According to the DfE, the government has invested £15 billion ($18.9 billion) since 2015 to keep schools safe and operational.
A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) in June, warned that more than 400 other schools could potentially be affected by the material's use in the long term, putting an estimated 700,000 pupils at risk.