Problems emerge at another Scottish PFI school

Building defects have forced the partial closure of another PFI school in Scotland.

Balfron High School in Stirling said it had identified the issues during “precautionary building checks” and has arranged for pupils to be moved out while repairs are carried out.

Last month, Edinburgh Council was forced to close 17 schools built by Miller Construction under a PFI deal due to safety concerns arising from building defects. An inquiry into the fiasco has since been ordered by the council.

Balfron High School was built built in 2001 by Jarvis Construction, which went into administration in 2010. The PFI and facilities management contract was subsequently taken over by property maintenance firm SGP, which has since been acquired by another support services company, Bellrock.

A statement from the school said: “Recent precautionary checks at Balfron High School brought to light two issues with walls in a stairwell and the school’s small gym. These are issues that would have been expected to arise within a building that is now 15 years old and were not deemed to be due to building quality or practices at that time.

“However, further investigations by engineers revealed another potential issue with the wall of the stairwell which was not immediately obvious during previous checks, and additional issues in the atrium. As such another survey has been carried out which shows that further repair work will be necessary.”

The school said the repair programme will continue into the summer holidays. Twelve temporary classrooms will be delivered to the Balfron campus on 21-22 May, but in the meantime, Balfron has had to bus pupils to neighbouring schools to attend classes. In a letter to parents, headmistress Elaine Bannatyne said it was hoped that all lessons will be held at Balfron again from the start of next month.

CM contacted Bellrock for comment but the company did not return our calls.