Westmorland and Furness schools have benefitted from £2 million in essential maintenance improvements over their summer break, thanks to successful partnership working between council officers, schools and contractors to complete additional works to those initially planned in the summer maintenance programme.
The annual budget for school maintenance is £4.3 million and it was anticipated that the tight timeframe, while the schools were unoccupied, would allow for the completion of works amounting to just over £1million. Once on site, further assessments were carried out at each school and identified additional priorities. The works were expanded to deliver even more important upgrades and safety improvements during the six week holidays.
Extensive work was carried out across several council owned schools and covered a range of safety, quality and energy efficiency initiatives as well as internal decoration to upgrade school facilities in time for the start of the Autumn term.
As well as a better look and feel to buildings, through replastering and repainting, the safety and compliance of facilities was vastly improved. Asbestos was found in some schools, which added to the works needed to ensure its safe removal from site. Water tanks were repiped and renewed and training was also delivered to school staff on building safety and awareness.
Fire systems were either upgraded or renewed to give better detection to warn building users of a potential fire. The layout of some buildings was also reviewed to increase fire safety. Builders worked flat out, including weekends to reconfigure the footpath of lower floors, building walls and adding stairwells to create physical barriers and other areas had fire proofing installed to create a safer environment. The proposals needed to be fully agreed with the schools to ensure the new spaces would be fit for purpose to operate the schools and deliver learning in the best way.
Externally, reconstruction works were carried out on walls and windows to improve the physical integrity of buildings. Roof repairs, and in some cases renewals, took place, as well as new guttering, skylight installations and additional insulation to make buildings more comfortable and reduce running costs through loss of heat.
Cllr Peter Thornton, Westmorland and Furness Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways and Assets, said:
“We owe it to our children to give them safe and comfortable school buildings and I’m pleased that we’ve been able to do a substantial amount of work during the Summer break.”
“We want to make the best use of our funds and these projects help to cut running costs whilst also providing, better and safer environments for our pupils, meaning it’s money well spent.”
Cllr Janet Battye, Westmorland and Furness Council’s Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, said:
“We have a duty to provide enough school spaces in the best facilities we can across Westmorland and Furness and our maintenance programme is vital to ensuring buildings are fit for purpose, welcoming and safe.”
“These works have been carried out while the schools have not been in use, minimising the impact on our young people and school staff and giving all building users a great start to the new school year in nicer, fresher and more comfortable buildings.”
John Ruskin School in Coniston was one of those to benefit from the summer works. Head teacher Peter Blackburn said:
“I’m really pleased with the investment from Westmorland and Furness Council and the resulting improvements in the school. It has provided a much-improved learning environment, which is absolutely brilliant.”
Further work is planned to take place in other areas during the rest of this financial year, to continue to bring improvements to council schools and buildings.