It is no surprise that all the schools threatened with closure because they contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) are in the state sector, and not the private fee-paying schools that the Tories send their kids to (Schools in England seek alternative spaces amid fears concrete crisis could affect 1,000, 1 September).
Although they have known about the problem for at least five years, the government didn’t give a monkey’s about it until they were forced to act at the last minute and at the most inconvenient time. From Grenfell to the Bibby Stockholm, the Tories continue to house, educate and detain the most vulnerable people in potentially lethal accommodation.
This combination of malice and incompetence has typified government for the last 13 years, and it is time the Tories were driven out of office not just for the next five years but for ever, perhaps to reappear at some future time in the Horrible Histories series as The Uncaring Conservatives.
David Forster
Liverpool
• The crumbling concrete in schools, hospitals and courts is an apt metaphor for Tory rule – years of neglect of basic public services. If the country were their home, they’d invest in it: mend the gutters, fix the tiles on the roof. But the Tories do not see the country as their home. To them, it is a playground for profit and market forces. I said all this to my wife and son in the car on the way home, and my son (who is nine) said I should write to the Guardian. What good it will do I don’t know.
Jeremy Grant
Woodhouse Eaves, Leicestershire
• The Building Research Establishment (BRE), a government body responsible for testing building materials and techniques, was privatised during the dying days of John Major’s government in 1997. During the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry, it emerged that some staff at the BRE may never have received “impartiality training”. In 2022, the Fire Brigades Union called for the BRE to be renationalised. Given the present alarm about Raac, there is a pressing case for creating an organisation independent of the building industry.
Louise Campbell
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
• When I started my first job at the Building Research Station (as the BRE was then called) in the 1960s, we were testing the properties of reinforced autoclaved concrete slabs. This is not a new problem.
Ron Brewer
Old Buckenham, Norfolk
• Dodgy concrete was used in schools and hospitals. But there is no mention of its use in shopping centres, apartment blocks, multi-storey car parks and office blocks at Canary Wharf. That’s curious, isn’t it?
Chris Turner
Manchester
• While our schools, built with this form of concrete 30 years ago, crumble away, the Colosseum in Rome, built 2,000 years ago with Roman concrete, still stands. Do we learn nothing from history?
Sue Kellaway
Highcliffe, Dorset
• So this concrete “has an estimated 30-year lifespan”. Didn’t that allow 30 years to plan ahead?
Dr Nick McAdoo
London
• I do enjoy your fantasy house hunt feature, but can you confirm that the schools near Saturday’s five houses are still open for business (Fantasy house hunt: English homes for sale within walking distance of schools, 1 September)?
Dr Dave Allen
Portsmouth
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