Campaigners are up in arms after it has recently come to light that a year long review of the condition of our country’s schools (from classroom decoration to the state of the toilets) will specifically exclude asbestos. It is alleged that the government has acted in this way because it knows that tackling the issue of asbestos will costs millions of pounds.
The scale of the problem is huge with over 75% of our schools containing asbestos. Statistically there has been a 15 fold increase in mesothelioma deaths since 1967 in Britain with more than 2,300 in 2009. The annual death toll for asbestos related conditions is expected to rise to 5000 by 2015. There have been over 140 such deaths involving teachers alone in the last 10 years.
The government has no national picture of asbestos in our schools or the cost of dealing with it. The matter is left in the hands of local authorities whose resources have already been stripped back to the bone.
Schools do not have to tell people if they have asbestos or routinely report the state it is in. Nor, according to the HSE, do they have to remove it during refurbishment.
So how safe are our children in school? Tweet us with your thoughts.
