Headlining the Herald today:
NHS staff and patients are being “left in the dark over the safety of hospitals and clinics” with only a third of buildings suspected of containing a potentially dangerous form of concrete investigated.
A number of public premises and facilities constructed using a material known as Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) have been closed as a precaution over fears that it is unstable and poses a risk of collapse.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23804784.raac-concrete-majority-nhs-buildings-not-yet-checked/
Who says the public is endangered?
Dame Jackie Baillie.
What are the facts?
RAAC is inevitably present in many public buildings and has been there for decades now.
How many life endangering collapses due to RAAC have been reported in Scotland?
None that I can find.
There has been maintenance carried out, over decades, to prevent collapses and some areas in some building are no longer being used. That kind of activity takes place when other structural flaws are identified, as a matter of routine, by the building safety officers employed by all public bodies and calling on, if necessary, those employed by all local authorities.
There have been cutbacks in the staffing and in the level of inspections, since the beginning of Thatcherism in 1979, by Conservative-run local authorities, across England. In Scotland, to be fair, there has been, to my knowledge, no comparable neglect of such serious matters by any party in government, locally or at Holyrood.
If RAAC is kept dry, the reinforcing steel bars will not corrode and roof beams, in particular, will remain safe.
The one roof to come down in England is almost certainly due to a maintenance failure to keep water out and a monitoring failure due to the reduction in inspections under the Cons. I looked at this in January 2023: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/01/29/the-ties-that-do-not-bind-uk-and-scottish-labour-diverge-on-importance-of-collapsing-schools/
That no Scottish hospital or school with RAAC is to be closed means that they have all been maintained and regularly inspected, locally, and are safe.
This reflects the overall superiority of building control in Scotland. See https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2022/09/20/brian-wilsons-shiny-neck/
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Jackie Bailie: the ignorant ‘expert’ and weaponiser of the smallest of things.
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So RAAC isn’t a problem at all?
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Not if used as intended as non-structural planking and when properly monitored
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What with RAAC and PFI that is some legacy the Pro UK parties have bestowed upon Scotland is it not…..and these two issues are just the tip of the iceberg in respect to negatives we here in Scotland have had to endure because we are part of their UK ……and thus being a part of their UK we must continue to suffer being (over) ruled by greedy, incompetent and corrupt UK governments…..
Yet we must listen incessantly to them, pro UK politicians, criticising the Scottish government that we elect in Scotland , and who as a Scottish government, are expected to clean up the many messes made previously by the parties who sit in the UK parliament at WM……..
Yes indeed many messes which occurred long before the SNP even came to power in Scotland as the Scottish government…..yet somehow Pro UK political parties and their media think that they can conspire to present this current mess, as in RAAC, as another #SNPBAD moment……so risks to public health and much expense must now fall at the feet of the Scottish government (yet again) for things generated by others …….it seems to me that all of the risks to public Health and expense lies squarely with those who generated these problems in the first place and not , as they promote, those who time and time again are expected to FIX the many messes left behind by other Pro UK political parties (and also current problems/obstacles instigated by the current Tory UK government) …….
So OUR elected Scottish government must always be expected by them (pro UK parties) to constantly pick up the tab and also be expected to resolve issues not of their creation…..if only the media exposed THAT fact then perhaps some Scots , who currently cannot themselves see it as such, would then realise how damaging and expensive it is for Scotland to be within a UK run by those whose governance fails us in Scotland time and time again…..
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Absolutely. The SNP need to talk about Labours’ legacy in Scotland. The SNP are expected to repair the damage and neglect of Labour during their ten years at Holyrood, where they sent £billions of Scotland’s money back to Westminster and plunged Scottish councils into £billions of debt with their PFI scheme (scam) and all while having to mitigate disgraceful Tory/Labour cuts via Westminster, to the poorest and most vulnerable. SNP should be shouting from the rooftops about the EngGov starving little children across the Uk including in Scotland, which of course is being mitigated and remedied by the Scottish SNP government, against the odds.
Perhaps SNP are scared to talk about how Labour did nothing good for Scotland in their ten years at Holyrood, (or be accused of harking back to the past by anti SNP media). Labour utterly neglected to invest in services, infrastructure (except for their disgraceful Edinburgh trams fiasco which went way over budget by £billions) education, jobs, housing, health, nope all were not important to them. Did we not have people lying on trolleys in hospital corridors and terrible hospital aquired infection rates on their watch?
Oh you can’t talk about the past and Labour’s terrible legacy in Scotland, that SNP have been in power for so long it’s all their fault. No, every single British/English party in power before devolution and Labour after devolution, need to be called out for the terrible damage and neglect to Scotland and the people of Scotland, all while stealing Scotland’s massive resources from under the peoples’ noses. You could hardly make it up could you, but I was thinking the other day, the BritNats are and have been very canny indeed…experts at conning people and of course dividing people, creating havoc.
They say Scots are ‘canny’ nah, that is a perfect word for the English who rule over Scotland to this day.
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I am not an architect but a mechanical engineer but I felt it worth relating the following to you:
I was talking to an archtect colleague who worked in the times when RAAC was used in Scotland.
He commented that building construction in Scotland decades ago differed slightly but significantly with respect to RAAC. In Scotland brick (the 8″ x 4″ types) were not as widely used as they were in England for main constructure due to the absence of the good quality of such bricks in Scotland. The 8″ x 4″ here that we see on modern buildings tend to be used for the facade behind the curtain walling. Larger sized blocks in combination with steel girders used for main support walls.
I am led to believe that RAAC when supported on 8″ 4″ may has a greater tendency to fail at the edges at the main walls when dampness ingresses on the RAAC.
I haven’t seen this geographical difference explained anywhere with respect to the location of suspect buildings across the UK.
Where all the suspect buildings are located across the UK – would their location indicate the above is true?
Acting on the advice and instruction of structural engineers who would know of the above and the variations in construction from area to area across the UK. is the way forward.
Dame Baillie is a scary politician…. is she now going to worry folks on how buildings are now designed and constructed even before they are built?
I doubt it….. but seizing political advantage at all costs is indeed all she cares about.
Best Wishes,
Bob
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GLASGOW HERALD IS NOW THE SINGLE BIGGEST LEFTY SCOTTISH PAPER EVER
WAT THE HEL HAS HAPPENED TO THIS ONCE GREAT RIGHT LEANING PAPER
NOW COSILY ‘IN BED’ WITH ALL THE WERE TOTALLY AGAINST
IN THEIR CIRCULATION HEYDAY
THEY WILL BE FINISHED WHEN SCOTS TAKE THEIR INDEPENDENCE
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I share the following ‘expert’ view which supports the measured assessment given in the main blog post that Raac is not necessarily an imminent danger in every building where it is present. Sharing this has also been prompted by reading the earlier btl contribution in response to the blog post: ‘So RAAC isn’t a problem at all?’. Surely obtaining and evaluating evidence in order to support risk-based decision-making is very different from denying the existence of a problem!
From The Guardian on 6 September, 2023, by Chris Goodier, professor of construction engineering and materials at Loughborough University’s School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering.
Headline: ‘The good news? Raac isn’t always dangerous. The bad news: it’s not just in schools: Alarmist reports won’t help in the lengthy task of locating and treating buildings it’s in. We will be hearing about it for a while’
‘As a professor of construction engineering and materials at Loughborough University, I’ve been studying Raac in buildings in Britain – mainly in the NHS – for several years now. It has been on many people’s radar for a while. Over the past few days there have been many somewhat overblown ideas circulating about the dangers of Raac: that it is a fundamentally flawed material, that it only lasts a few decades, or that it is something like “an Aero bar” in terms of strength.
‘These are worth pushing back on. But, at the same time, there are REAL DANGERS POSED BY BUILDINGS WITH POORLY CONSTRUCTED, DEGRADED OR POORLY MAINTAINED RAAC. And, if anything, the discussion so far has often underplayed the scale of Raac-containing buildings around the UK.’ (my emphasis)
And: ‘…. Raac wasn’t solely used in the public sector, then that there are many privately held buildings – for instance, the 60s and 70s-era, flat-roofed industrial structures that one sees in many business parks – that could possibly contain the material. These will be especially hard to catalogue as record-keeping and indeed establishing ownership of privately owned structures is more difficult than it is for publicly owned buildings such as schools.’
Adding: ‘ THERE IS NOTHING IN OUR RESEARCH THAT HAS SUGGESTED RAAC IMMEDIATELY FAILS AFTER 30 YEARS, OR THAT IT IS A UNIQUELY DANGEROUS MATERIAL. TV clips of Raac pieces being snapped in half are unhelpful. No material or building lasts for ever, and MUCH DEPENDS ON HOW IT HAS BEEN MANUFACTURED, INSTALLED AND MAINTAINED, AND HOW IT IS USED. Our research suggests that PROPERLY MAINTAINED RAAC CAN EASILY LAST 50 YEARS, AND SHOULD BE ABLE TO CARRY ON FOR SEVERAL DECADES AFTER THAT.’
‘However, Raac that has been improperly installed, suffered damage or hasn’t been waterproofed adequately could pose a risk. There is often Raac in flat roofs, and it may sustain water damage WHEN WATERPROOFING HASN’T BEEN MAINTAINED; THIS IS COMMON WHEN FUNDING IS TIGHT AND WHOEVER MANAGES THE BUILDING RESPONDS ONLY WHEN LEAKS SPRING UP, RATHER THAN PREVENTING THEM in the first place.’
‘This is not an asbestos situation, but rather one where WE WILL PROBABLY FIND MANY BUILDINGS WHERE THE MATERIAL IS USED SAFELY, and also some that must be fixed by replacement or structural strengthening.’
He notes: ‘It is likely that other countries are watching what is happening in the UK at the moment, and they will begin their own investigations – and perhaps experience a storm of news coverage about Raac – fairly soon.’
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Aye, doubtless a ‘system’ distraction to https://web.archive.org/web/20230923122610/https://www.thenational.scot/news/23807827.questions-unison-official-labour-unionist-links-revealed/ in the National.
Yet check out the HMS James Cook version https://archive.ph/pv2Yq with the headline photo “The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow is among the sites identified in the desktop survey”, despite being built 25 years after the product was discontinued…
Not everybody has a Tardis available…
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