Havering Council: ‘Our schools don’t contain RAAC’

No Havering Council-run school buildings contain a type of concrete that could collapse, a council spokesperson has said.

The Department for Education (DfE) ordered 104 schools, nurseries and colleges nationwide, that were reportedly fitted with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), to shut buildings until new safety measures are put in place.

New RAAC cases “reduced” the DfE’s confidence that school and college buildings with confirmed RAAC should remain open without mitigations in place.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said today (September 1) that a collapse over the summer of a beam that had been considered safe sparked an urgent rethink on whether buildings with the aerated concrete could remain open.

The Recorder contacted Havering Council to enquire if any of the borough’s schools will be affected.

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A council spokesperson said in response that student safety is “very important” to it.

Over the past two years, the council has said to have arranged inspections of all the schools run by it to detect RAAC.

Follow-up inspections also took place where RAAC was suspected and so far no RAAC has been identified in any of the local authority-run schools, they claimed.

The DfE, the spokesperson added, has also conducted its own inspections of school buildings across the country, “highlighting issues with RAAC where these have been found”.  

But the council said it cannot comment on other academies or institutions that are not under its management in Havering.

BBC reported that no list of all the affected schools has been released by DfE yet. 

Education secretary Gillian Keegan told broadcasters: “Most parents should not be worried about this at all.”

Details on the government advisory to schools can be found on this link: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/08/31/new-guidance-on-raac-in-education-settings/