I remember wondering years ago why we seemed to be getting rid of our solid old Victorian and Deco school buildings (most of which are still standing strong) and replacing them with 1950s, 60s and 70s style constructions. It seems that the limitations of this concrete has been well known for years, but just shoved under the carpet. It seems like the cycle of British politics is alive and kicking; Tories get voted in to ‘sort’ the economy, following years of Labour ‘overspending’. They do this by cutting costs, freezing public sector pay (apart from themselves and judges) and cancelling public investment projects (like building schools). We struggle on for years, until it ‘breaks’, then voters decide it’s time for a change and vote Labour back in. The Labour government is forced to address all this - which requires lots of spending to fix it. They get half way through when the Tories get in again on the back of Labour’s ‘overspending’ again. We go back to Austerity and the cycle is complete to begin once again. In this case however it looks like it’s ‘broken’ slightly earlier than hoped, so the public spending needs to happen under the current government, which is against their conservative policies. If it happened in 2 years time on Starmer’s watch it would have been ideal!!!
I do find the timing of all these reports a bit strange with the kids returning from summer. But as you say B&W. Has to Political!
In the interest of political neutrality I have to add that lots of the defective schools and public buildings were built under a Labour government, so they aren’t completely guilt free in this either.
The issue isn’t the building of the schools, but the lack of maintenance, and that they were told it was an issue but did nothing about it.
Agreed - so any investment in buildings constructed from it will be temporary. Again I point out the number of villages in the uk with solid Victorian buildings now named ‘The Old School House’ now either privately owned big houses, converted into restaurants or in the case of Swindon, made into council offices, whilst these ‘limited life’ or ‘high maintenance’ buildings were thrown up to ‘replace’ them - why???
I agree once they were built they had to be maintained - but I question why some of them were even built, when the purpose-built buildings they replaced are still standing strong.
We kind of became a throw away society too, futuristic designs made of cheap materials seemed to rule. Bath for instance threw up a modern shopping centre, which fairly recently has been replaced with a more traditional one.
Both parties were guilty of overseeing the construction of these buildings. The tories have been in power for 13 years so should have seen it coming as everyone was aware they were coming towards the end of their lifespan and they were told. It’s debatable whether Labour would have done any better, but we’ll never know. The problem for the Tory’s is it’s symptomatic of how they behave in general. Schools and public buildings crumbling around their ears play into Labours narrative of what a long period of Tory rule delivers.
No it doesn’t, the steel if not protected has limited life. However concrete needs steel, and concrete has compressive strength but no tensile strength. The steel has tensile strength. Concretes biggest problem, is water, and it gets added like it’s out of fashion when it gets to sites.
Because it was cheaper to build the concrete monstrosities than to properly maintain the older ones.. and also the destruction of many during the war.. woodworm and dry rot was usually an issue with the older buildings along with substandard footings.. demolish and replace with concrete unfortunately became the norm..
You know better than I do, but was always led to believe there was something called concrete cancer where after a while crumbles back into dust.
My mate had his council house in Hartcliffe completely rebuilt back in the early 90s due to concrete cancer.
ASR, alkali silica reaction. If you made concrete, you would use cement and aggregate without control. So it would possibly get it. When we make it, we control the alkali’s in the ingredients of the mix. So that’s in the cement, aggregates admixtures and even water. (We use recycled water) so we control it to keep the alkali level below 3.5 kgs per cubic metre. But these controls are improving all the time, so previous used concrete had less control. That’s why you see spalling where the steel rots and blows the concrete away. In regards to limited live, we take a crushed rock, break it up and glue it back together again. It’s all about controlling the glue to return it back to a rock.
the schools built back then and up to early mid 80's are the problems. A vast number of our schools have a " initial foot print dating back post war builds" and have gradually had bits added as population grows! [QUOTE="bcfcredandwhite, post: 16977383, member: 1009684"]It seems that the limitations of this concrete has been well known for years, but just shoved under the carpet.[/QUOTE] it has since it was stopped being used in the mid 80's as for shoved under the carpet..... it has not been in a lot of cases, as remedial work has been going on since it was stopped being used. But like most things the longer they stay in place and DETERIORATE, out of sight, the worse the problem manifests itself. BIT LIKE ALL THE COUNCIL HOUSES POST WAR .... MILLIONS now live in the untreated ones no real problems others moved out for a few weeks whilst they were updated and still live in them. SCHOOLS a lot were built in the late 50's / 60's .. do we blame those .gov's? ..NO it was what it was .................
