Sobering NAO report on condition of school buildings is tip of an infrastructure iceberg

Back towards the end of June, the National Audit Office released their Condition of school buildings report which made for some sobering reading. With 700,000 school pupils thought to be learning in buildings in need of “major rebuilding or refurbishment” and 38% of school buildings believed to be past their design life, it’s clear there’s a need for major investment.

Currently there’s £2.3 billion of annual capital funding for school rebuilding, maintenance and repair, however, this is some way short of the £5.3 billion of annual funding recommended by the Department for Education (DfE) in 2020 to maintain our schools and mitigate the most serious risks of building failure.

Whilst the report raises serious concerns about the safety and suitability of the buildings our young people are learning in, it also raises another very serious question…

In what state is the rest of the UK’s major infrastructure?

In December 2022 the British Medical Association released a report titled Building the Future: Brick by Brick. The report focused on the condition of the UK’s healthcare estate. What’s alarming is that nearly 40% of respondents to the 2022 estates and IT survey rated the facilities they were working in as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.

What’s even more concerning is the fact that more than 43% of respondents believed that the physical condition of the buildings they’re working in are already negatively impacting patient care.

Since 2015 the estimated maintenance backlog has ballooned from £4.34 billion to £10.25 billion today. Given the fact that the pace of investment hasn’t kept up with the backlog, the problem is going to get worse until we see investment significantly increase.

As well as healthcare facilities, UK court buildings are also in a perilous state. In December 2022 The Law Society published findings from a survey of 500 solicitors regarding the state of the UK’s court buildings. 64% reported delays in cases due to the state of the facilities, over 30% highlighted that they did not feel physically safe while attending court and the report also highlighted major accessibility issues for disabled court users.

A more publicly scrutinised example is the poor condition and safety fears of the Palace of Westminster where the cost to refurbish and modernise the building has been estimated to be between £7bn to £13bn.

The condition of our public buildings is in decline with many no longer fit for purpose. The longer we delay investing sufficiently to modernise, refurbish and maintain these buildings, the less safe and secure we all are.

Whilst there’s an acute problem with our built environments, it doesn’t end there. Other vital UK infrastructure is also beginning to creak it seems.

In a report published by the RAC in 2022 where they surveyed their membership, it was found that 45% of drivers are concerned about the state of local roads. This was actually the leading concern of their members and the fact this report was also run during a year where rapidly rising fuel prices were hitting the headlines, the fact that the state of our roads was the biggest concern for motorists should give us an indication as to how bad the problem has become.

The state of the UK’s water infrastructure has also been covered extensively in recent times. In 2021-2022 it was found that water companies lost over a trillion litres of water in England and Wales as a result of leaky pipes. This year the government announced funding of £1.6bn to improve the UK’s water infrastructure, however, it’s believed this is massively short of where we need to be to boost its efficiency and quality.

Whilst we’re witnessing declines in the quality of our national infrastructure, we’re still among the top nations in the world in terms of the standard of it. I imagine we’re all noticing a decline compared to the standards we came to expect in the past, we see it in our public buildings, we see it on our roads, we’ve seen it during the energy crisis and when we begin to look at these declines collectively, it can seem like the vital infrastructure we all rely on is collapsing. That isn’t the case though.

That said, we should be worried. When it comes to the education, health and security of our people these facilities should be safe and secure as a bare minimum. The fact that we’re still having these conversations in 2023 is a concern and the longer we underinvest, the bigger this issue becomes.

Unfortunately, we seem to take a reactive approach to investment in our infrastructure. We neglect vital aspects of it until a disaster hits, moves it up the public agenda, and then we respond. A proactive approach, in our opinion, would be cheaper and less damaging in the long run.

You may be wondering why we pay so much attention to topics such as national infrastructure here at Door Controls Direct. As an architectural ironmonger, we supply door hardware to residential and non-residential built environments.

When it comes to the maintenance of buildings, as discovered by the Guild of Architectural Ironmongers, up to 20% of the budget is spent on architectural ironmongery. It’s such a vital piece of the maintenance puzzle because ensuring high quality and well maintained door hardware is applied throughout a built environment, massively improves the safety, security and efficiency of the building.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this? Do you think the UK is going through an infrastructure crisis? Maybe you think all is fine? Do you have any personal experiences of shocking examples of neglect within our public buildings? Please feel free to share in the comments. We’d love to hear from you.