Revealed: 1.5m children in England studying in unfit school buildings
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Underinvestment has led to crumbling infrastructure in schools, hospitals and courts, Guardian study shows. More than 1.5 million children are studying in dilapidated school buildings, a Guardian investigation has found, with years of underinvestment leaving England’s public infrastructure in a crumbling state.
A study of public sector building conditions, including hospitals, schools and courts, has found thousands are in need of urgent repair, with conditions so bad in many that they are endangering the lives of those who visit and work in them. One school in Cumbria had to be evacuated because inspectors found the floor could collapse at any moment. At a hospital in Sutton, the Guardian found masking tape holding windows in place and mud seeping through the floor.
The investigation combines data from multiple government departments for the first time, and has prompted calls for ministers to spend hundreds of millions of pounds more to carry out immediate improvements. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative chair of the cross-party public accounts committee, said: “Our committee has long warned of the short-term thinking and decision-making in government that has inexorably led to the miasma of rot rising over our public realm.
“Some of our nation’s hospitals are in a desperate state, with props having to be used to hold up floors – some of which cannot even bear the weight of patients needing treatment.”. He added: “Proper maintenance of public buildings cannot continue to be seen as a non-urgent matter of leaky roofs and draughty rooms. Far from an abstract issue, these are problems of the gravest concern that can cause snowballing additional costs.”.
