Richard Adams (pictured above left) is a partner and George Bridge (above right) is a solicitor at law firm Burges Salmon
A month or so ago, most people had never heard of Autoclave Sealed Reinforced Concrete or RAAC. The government’s recent decision to close all English school buildings built with RAAC, and the resulting political and media firestorm, has highlighted it. The furore has also raised some difficult questions for public authorities, landlords and others who may have RAAC in their buildings.
“RAAC in buildings is not a topic that goes away as the news cycle progresses”
RAAC was widely used from the 1950s to the mid-1990s, mainly for the manufacture of roof and wall planks, due to its low cost, good fire resistance and thermal insulation properties. In the mid-1980s, evidence began to emerge that the older RAAC was susceptible to sudden collapse and that the porosity of the material allowed water to seep in, corroding the reinforcing bars and driving the own concrete to fall and crack, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.
Although RAAC’s problems have been known for decades, it wasn’t until the roof of the teachers’ lounge at Kent’s Singlewell Primary School collapsed with little warning in 2018 that the problems came to the fore plan In August 2023, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announced that “RAAC has now expired. It is liable to collapse with little or no warning”.
Of course, RAAC was not only used in schools. Hospitals, prisons, courthouses and other public and private sector buildings such as office blocks and theaters were built with RAAC for most of the second half of the 20th century. There could be tens of thousands of buildings that require repair work.
If you are concerned that your building may contain RAAC, there are four key steps: identification, mitigation, remediation and recovery (some of which may occur in parallel).
1. Identification
The first step is to identify if there is RAAC in the building. In August, the Department for Education (DfE) published identification guide to help authorities understand how to identify RAAC. Initially, someone responsible for building/estate management should survey the building themselves or instruct a surveyor to do so (depending on experience). When deciding what action to take where RAAC is a potential risk, responsible parties must at all times have regard to their obligations under health and safety legislation.
2. Mitigation
If the presence of RAAC is confirmed, the next step is to mitigate the risk. The most appropriate answer will depend on several factors. For schools in England, current DfE advice is to vacate areas known to contain RAAC unless, or until, appropriate mitigation is in place.
In an interview with Construction News’ sister title, New Road EngineerChris Goodier, Professor of Engineering and Building Materials at Loughborough University, described the three main strategies available when RAAC planking is detected in a building:
- Do nothing, as long as the RAAC is safe;
- Implement strengthening, such as adding structural and load bearing support;
- Completely replace the roof or other structure that contains RAAC.
Building owners will need to carefully consider all available information, taking expert technical advice as necessary, to consider mitigation measures necessary in each case to protect building users, comply with obligations health and safety and safeguard the asset.
3. Repair
When RAAC is detected in a building, at some point remediation will be required. The extent and speed of such correction will depend on the facts of each case. The potential presence of asbestos in RAAC planks can complicate inspection and repair processes. This toxic material was also widely used at the same time as RAAC and is a serious hazard when disturbed. Therefore, care should be taken when assessing whether buildings contain RAAC and when carrying out inspection and/or repair work.
Remediation can also be complicated by a lack of capacity in the construction sector. Julian De Voy, technical director of risk mitigation consultancy HKA, noted that “Demand for [RAAC remediation] Services could outstrip available skill sets in the short term, and we could see both public and private organizations waiting some time for repair work to be completed.” The large number of RAAC planks could also add to repair timelines. Steve McSorley, director of construction consultancy Perega, warned there could be more than 100,000 RAAC planks in the UK. Replacing all of these “would take time”. This in turn could have a long-term impact on available use and occupancy of the affected buildings.
4. Recovery
The number of buildings that contain RAACs means that it would cost billions to demolish and rebuild them all. In the education sector alone, replacing one 1950s block in each of the 572 schools with a potential RAAC problem would cost around £3.1 billion, according to DfE estimates published by 2022. This does not take into account the possibility of each school having to replace more than one block, nor the secondary costs associated with temporary alternative accommodation and other related costs. Extrapolate these costs to other public and private sector buildings, and it’s clear that the cost of repairing the RAAC is likely to be significant.
At present, the focus is rightly on identification, mitigation and remediation, but we are likely to see building owners also consider their recovery pathways. As most buildings containing RAAC were built before 1980, it can be difficult to claim repair costs from the original construction company due to contractual/statutory statutes of limitations. In any case, many of the original contractors may also have gone out of business in the intervening decades.
It is possible that the government will step in (as it did for the correction of fire safety defects under the recently introduced Building Safety Act 2022), but any such legislative action is likely to be very far. The factual circumstances are quite different when considering RAAC, and the appetite for government involvement to assist the private sector may be limited.
Claimant entities may seek to recover from their insurers, subject to specific policy conditions. Private financial initiative companies and/or facilities management providers may also be required to correct the RAAC on their own, depending on the terms of their contracts.
A careful assessment of the avenues available for recovery will be important and this is likely to be an area of developing law and a source of contention in the coming years.
RAAC in buildings is not a topic that goes away as the news cycle progresses. The repair is likely to take many years and cost billions of pounds. While this will be discouraging for those responsible for buildings that may contain RAAC, the problem must be proactively addressed. Early identification is key. Mitigation can then be put in place before the problem is fixed. While it is not yet clear who will be best placed to foot the bill, or what support the government will offer, things will become clearer as the extent of the problem is revealed.
