Only ‘luck’ saved pupils as 9-ton wall collapsed

IT was thanks only to luck and timing that no one was killed when a nine-ton stone wall collapsed at a primary school during a storm, a damning report has concluded.

An urgent review was commissioned last January after the gable wall of ten-year-old Oxgangs Primary School in Edinburgh gave way in high winds.

Fears of construction defects were then raised about other schools which had been built or refurbished under a controversial public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.

Seventeen schools were closed while engineers tried to determine whether they had potentially deadly flaws, and the chaos meant 7,600 pupils were forced out of their classrooms and bussed to other premises.

Yesterday, a report into the scandal condemned the local authority and said there had been a lack of scrutiny over construction work which was impaired by ‘basic defects’.

A 250-page report by building expert Professor John Cole CBE states: ‘The fact that no injuries or fatalities to children resulted from the collapse of the gable wall at Oxgangs School was a matter of timing and luck.

‘Approximately nine tons of masonry fell on an area where children could easily have been standing or passing through. One does not require much imagination to think of what the consequences might have been if it had happened an hour or so later.’

The report, ordered by Edinburgh City Council, found the incident was among five recent wall collapses at Scottish schools in high winds which could have been prevented with ‘proper quality control’.

It states: ‘Five may seem a relatively modest number but, given the potential implications of failures of this type, one such collapse is one too many.’

Representatives from those who built the schools, architects, structural engineers, parents, teachers and current and former council staff were interviewed. Based on their testimony the inquiry concluded that the Oxgangs wall – which collapsed during Storm Gertrude only ten years after the school was built – fell due to poor construction and inadequate supervision, with wall ties not being properly embedded to blame.

Other key findings blamed insufficient independent quality assurance and poor record-keeping, as well as ineffective quality assurance measures within the construction industry.

In addition to the 17 premises affected in Edinburgh, the report found evidence of ‘construction defects’ in other Scottish schools, with panels of brick or blockwork that were not securely fixed.

Regarding the PPP, the report states: ‘The City of Edinburgh Council had a sound rationale for their decision to adopt the PPP methodology for the funding and procurement of the schools and acted appropriately and pragmatically in making this.’

Regarding the financing method and impact it had on the building work, the report states it ‘was not responsible for the defective construction’, but did increase the risk of poor quality design and work.

At a council meeting after the report’s publication, Professor Cole said: ‘These defects could have led to the death of children. Building quickly can lead to shortcuts.’

Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Education Institute for Scotland teaching union, described the collapse as ‘an extremely serious incident which, but for sheer luck, could well have had tragic results’.

He said: ‘This report issues a stark warning.

‘This is not an area where corners or costs should ever be cut.’

All of the schools closed were built in a £360million PPP deal between Edinburgh Council and Miller Construction.

Keith Miller, who was at the helm of the company when the schools were built, refused to answer questions on the report.

Edinburgh City Council chief executive Andrew Kerr confirmed that the council would foot the £200,000 bill for the investigation.

He said: ‘The report pulls no punches and makes clear what went wrong, the reasons for it and where responsibility lay.

‘The council, our public and private sector partners both in Scotland and across the UK, need to take on board the issues raised and address the concerns highlighted in the report as they have far-reaching implications for the construction industry.’

Housing Minister Kevin Stewart has now written to councils about the report.

He said: ‘The safety of people in public buildings is an absolute priority and I am very concerned by some of the findings highlighted in this report.’

‘Building defects could have led to deaths’