RAAC and ruin

A few days ago it was British airports being shut down by an air traffic control technical error and today we hear that at least one hundred and fifty-six schools will not be able to reopen, fully or at all, to students on Monday after the summer break due to fears their concrete roofs might suffer sudden catastrophic collapse.

These incidents are merely the latest in a catalogue of debacles in British public life, from physical infrastructure collapse and IT systems failures through industrial action, courts and ports backlogs, food and housing shortages, an epochal cost-of-living crisis and a comprehensive public services implosion as a result of the 40% cut in funding imposed by central government on local authorities. (And breathe...!)

A form of lightweight concrete, RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) was used in schools, colleges and other building construction from the 1950s until the mid-1990s. However, it is different from traditional concrete; quicker and easier to use but much weaker, making structures in which it has been deployed less durable. After thirty years it is prone to fail without warning.

Alongside this, a series of high-profile scandals involving police services, the NHS and the Home Office has undermined public trust in our key national institutions, leading to the widespread perception that nothing is working in the UK. It is difficult to refute this in the face of so much evidence, statistical and of our own eyes, to support the contention. 

Rather than trying to meaningfully address these issues, however, the government squanders valuable legislative time and energy introducing yet another pointless immigration act and bills to compel convicted criminals to attend court for sentencing (how?) and criminalising nitrous oxide (laughing gas) use (why?). Headline-grabbing, knee-jerk reaction is taking the place of serious policy-making, obviously.

The problems besetting British society have been accruing for at least the last thirteen-years of Tory government and the problems with RAAC specifically have been known for the past decade. It was always only a quick-fix, short-term solution to replacing war-damaged infrastructure while creating additional new stock but, as with so many 'temporary' measures of its kind, it has been allowed to linger on until becoming a crisis. 

The cost of rectifying the toxic inheritance of short-termism and wilful neglect is likely to run into trillions of pounds and take decades to complete. An incoming Labour government will have the unenviable task of needing to resolve all these issues, all at once, and at a time of eye-watering national debt and rampant inflation. Good luck with that one!

Nevertheless, it is not impossible and has been achieved before, notably by the post-war Attlee Labour government of 1945-51, which created the welfare state and NHS while rebuilding war-damaged infrastructure and housing. That commitment offers a compelling blueprint for action. No one is saying it will be easy (it wasn't then and it certainly won't be now) but it can be done. That's the challenge Sir Keir Starmer and his Cabinet team face if they win the next general election.

Whether they have the stomach, or strategy, for it is another matter.

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