Derbyshire junior school forced to close – as building too cold after council fails to fix boiler for months
A school has been forced to shut their doors due to cold temperatures.
The Unstone Junior School in Dronfield was forced to make a decision to close its doors for two days (November 21 and 22), as the temperature in the building was too cold for children to attend their classes.
The school had a faulty boiler and was using portable heaters as a temporary measure of heating up classrooms while waiting for repairs promised by the Derbyshire County Council. Unfortunately, due to the freezing weather this week, this proved not to be enough.
Martin Birch, whose daughter attends the school, said: “The temperature was too cold for kids to work in the building. This is impacting children's education. The boiler was condemned in July and the council have refused to deal with it. It truly is an amazing school but seems to be completely let down by the council.”
The MP for North East Derbyshire Louise Jones contacted the Derbyshire County Council to try to resolve the issues.
She said: “I am really distressed to read that over a hundred children who attend Unstone Junior School in Dronfield were not able to go to school yesterday or today and possibly all of next week.
"This is only due to the staggering incompetence by the Conservative led Derbyshire County Council. Time after time this council is set on failing its young people and I share my constituents’ real concerns. I have urgently written to the Council asking for a response and an explanation as to why the boiler wasn’t fixed five months ago when the children were on holiday.
“As the Labour MP representing the school, I will do everything I can to help the school management team and the parents tackle this issue and I look forward to publishing a resolution soon. I want to see the children back in school as soon as possible.”
The council has asked engineers to visit the school today.
Rachael Fowlds, Headteacher at Unstone Junior School said: “Engineers have been at the school today and I'm pleased to say work to replace our boiler is due to start next week.
“We've been heating our classrooms using portable heaters as a temporary measure but this wasn't sufficient to keep our old Victorian building warm during freezing conditions this week and so we took the difficult decision to close on Thursday and Friday.
“Closing the school is never a decision we take lightly and is always a last resort in the best interests of the welfare of our pupils.
“The county council is providing us with more portable heaters so that we can welcome pupils back to school on Monday and we look forward to our new boiler system being installed very soon.”
A spokesperson for Derbyshire County Council said: “When older commercial boilers such as this break down and are beyond repair, a major upgrade is needed which often includes modernising the boiler room, installing boiler controls, flue replacement and CO2 detection.
“Significant replacement schemes need to be properly assessed and designed to meet health and safety standards and unfortunately, the current cold snap arrived before all of the necessary work could be completed, for which we apologise.”
“Engineers will start replacement work at the school next week to get the new boiler system installed as soon as possible. We’re also proving the school with more portable heaters and we’ll be reviewing our processes to try to ensure quicker responses in these circumstances in future.”