School repairs rise after BSF scrapped
Builders and contractors across the country have reported a sharp rise in the number of propositions from schools, needing urgent repairs work.
Since the Government scrapped the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, councils have been racing to issue tenders for minor maintenance work to be carried out, which is overdue.
Surrey and Sussex councils are two of the first in the country to start using alternative plans to tackle the backlog of maintenance work, which has been welcomed by those working in building jobs in the area.
One local builder was cited in the Construction Enquirer as saying: "We didn't know what hit us, suddenly we had 15 tender requests for works at schools in our area. We've had to drop everything to get the bids in quickly."
The governments decision to abandon the BSF programme now means hundreds of school buildings that were due to be replaced, will now have to be kept fit for purpose until further notice.
Philip White, the director of Syscap the finance provider for education, admitted that whilst some schools are dealing with the cut well, there will be many head teachers needing some funding and he called on the government to reveal what support would be available.
"We are pretty impressed at how quickly some school management teams have started putting plans in place to help themselves recover from this blow. Schools are going to want to use the summer holidays to start undertaking repairs so planning needs to start now.''
"I think it would be very bad for morale if schools were not told of the size of the first instalment of emergency funding before they broke up for holidays," he said.
Author: Hannah McLaverty-Williamson
Keywords: building jobs