1 week Ago By [email protected] (Ted Peskett)
Many Victorian schools in Cardiff have outlasted their more modern counterparts, according to a city councillor who said he visited a school where the walls "moved outwards" if you leaned on them. Concerns about the condition of schools across Cardiff were raised with Cllr Russell Goodway, Cardiff Council's cabinet member for investment and development, at a recent cabinet meeting on the local authority's estate. Speaking at the meeting, which took place on Thursday, January 23, Independent Conservatives councillor, Cllr Peter Littlechild, said he had concerns about the state of Victorian schools in the city and the amount of money being spent on "holding them up" with scaffolding.
He added: "Especially schools like Albany Primary and Roath Park which feel like they are not fit for purpose and I would just welcome, when we look at new buildings, that we also look after our old buildings so they are suitable for use." Recently Cardiff Council launched a five-year property strategy aimed at guiding how the local authority manages its estate. A council cabinet report on the strategy states that the local authority's school estate accounts for more than two-thirds of its property estate, excluding housing.
For more Cardiff news sign up to our newsletter here. Cllr Goodway said: "I don't deny the state of some of these Victorian buildings but I think it is unfortunate that some of the reasons that those schools are now in the condition that they are in is that the priority in the past has been to maintain schools that were built in the 1960s. In my own experience the school that my father started school in, and he is now 95, is still there and fully operational.
"The school I started secondary school in has been knocked down and replaced by a new one and that was built in my lifetime so I think that the investment in those Victorian buildings, providing that they can be adapted for modern needs, suggests that they are far more durable than some of the stuff that we built in the 50s and 60s. The reason why they are in that condition is that the bulk of the maintenance budgets have been targeted towards those newer schools that were in far worse conditions. "I was visiting secondary schools where if you leaned against the wall it moved outwards and you were pulling it back in and that was a school built in the late 1960s as well.
" Cardiff Council's cabinet members authorised funds to be used that will allow Lansdowne Primary School to be relocated to the north of where Fitzalan High School used to be. The Grade II-listed Victorian buildings that make up Lansdowne Primary School have come to an "end-of-life" stage according to the local authority. The council cabinet report on the corporate property strategy states that the council's schools estate is being closely monitored to "mitigate the increased deterioration outstripping investment".
It continues: "The profile of the estate has a number of Victorian buildings that have multiple building fabric risks and scaffolding to protect building users from stonework failure. There are also a large number of 1950-70s buildings that are also seeing structural challenges and deterioration." The report states that work to modernise the council's estate to reduce the cost of occupying, managing, and maintaining buildings will be central to the council's strategy, adding that the majority of the council's property costs relate to schools.
Cardiff Council owns and manages 750 sites across the city. The 300 sites of the operational estate are made up of 600 buildings that are used for the delivery of council services. The cost of managing, operating, and maintaining the council's operational estate is in excess of £40m a year.
The leased estate is made up of 450 properties. Of these 200 are leased for commercial purposes and 250 are leased to community tenants like sports teams and charitable organisations. Cardiff Council also owns land such as parks, housing land, and land held for development.
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