Kingsdown Rebuilding Confirmed

ANNA Firth, MP for Southend West, has warmly welcomed the news that Kingsdown school will be one of the schools, found to have RAAC, that will benefit from the school rebuilding programme.

A final list of schools and colleges with confirmed cases of RAAC in schools and colleges in England has been published. There are 234 education settings, out of 22,000, with confirmed RAAC in some areas of their buildings – around 1%.

119 of these schools will have one or more buildings rebuilt or refurbished through the School Rebuilding Programme where works to remove RAAC are more extensive or complex.

This announcement follows on from a meeting Firth had with Baroness Barran where she made clear that the areas of Kingsdown impacted by RAAC must be rebuilt.

Ms Firth has worked tirelessly on behalf of the school ever since RAAC was discovered last year, meeting with Ministers on numerous occasions and raising the matter in the commons three times.

The rebuild will ensure that the buildings impacted by RAAC will be replaced giving the school more certainty for the future. The Department for Education will now move forward with further surveys to assess the extent of the rebuild.

£1.8 billion has already been committed in capital funding this year to support schools to stay in good working order, as part of £15 billion allocated since 2015. The School Rebuilding Programme will transform over 500 schools over the next decade.  A further £1.5 billion has been made available for colleges through the further education capital transformation fund.

Ms Firth said: “I am delighted that following the pressure I have put on Ministers in the Department for Education, Kingsdown has been announced as one of the schools, which will benefit from the school rebuilding programme.

“This news will give the school some much needed clarity on the future and enable them to minimise future disruption to student’s education. I will however continue to keep the Department for Education’s feet to the fire to ensure this rebuild is delivered as soon as possible.”

Louise Robinson, Headteacher at Kingsdown School said: “Kingsdown School are pleased to hear that we will be part of the school rebuilding programme.

“It would be good to know as soon as possible when the survey will take place, so we can move forward.

Picture: Anna Firth with Baroness Barran at Kingsdown School.

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