THE Government has appointed a caseworker to support a school in Taunton with confirmed 'crumbling concrete' on its site.
Taunton Deane MP Rebecca Pow has visited Selworthy School's Oakhill campus after potentially unsafe reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) was identified.
She met with Ian Robinson, chief executive of the Oak Trust, of which Selworthy is a member.
Afterwards she said: "I visited Selworthy School to better understand the challenges they are facing as a result of RAAC.
"I also discussed the temporary safety measures that have been put in place with Ian and was reassured with what I heard on that front.
"I was pleased to hear that the Department for Education have assigned a caseworker to support the school to help minimise any disruption to children’s education.
"Following my meeting onsite, I will be reporting back to School System Minister, Baroness Barran, to ensure the school gets the support it needs both now and into the future.”
Gideon Amos, the LibDem Parliamentary candidate for Taunton and Wellington, has been critical of the Government's handling of the RAAC issue, which has affected scores of schools across the country.
He said: “Pupil safety must always be paramount, and parents want to be reassured that they are not sending their child back to school in an unsafe building that may collapse.
“Ministers must release information about each and every school that has been affected so far, and also set out a timetable to complete inspections on all other schools suspected to have RAAC.
“The truth is that we should never have got to this point and former Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s decision in 2021 to cut the programme to fix RAAC in these building has failed our hard-working schools on a massive scale.
“The Government has therefore known about this crumbling concrete for years, but time and again has denied our children the money needed to stop schools from collapsing completely."
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