Churchill Community College in North Tyneside.(Image: Iain Buist/Newcastle Chronicle)
North Tyneside pupils “deserve” safe school buildings says council, as pleas continue for extra cash to repair Wallsend college.
MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend, Mary Glindon, last week asked during PMQs if funds could be sped up to help rectify structural issues at Churchill Community College in Wallsend. The MP stated in the chamber that pupils have and to be taught in modular buildings for over 16 months, since the discovery of weak and brittle concrete, unrelated to wrack, and a now-disused construction method.
Churchill Community College is one of four schools which were found to have the same issue following council inspections in 2024. The other schools with the same issue are Fordley Primary School, Grasmere Academy, and Hazlewood Community Primary School.
The inspections which discovered the alarming faults were sparked by the partial collapse of Fordley Primary School’s ceiling in December 2023. In March last year, it was found North Tyneside Council had spent around £7m in modular classrooms across the schools.
Following the MPs request in Parliament, Jon Ritchie, director of resources at North Tyneside Council, said: “Children and young people in our borough deserve to learn in safe school buildings. While we continue to manage the issue locally, the scale and cost of long-term re-mediation cannot be met by the council alone.
“We continue to highlight these challenges with the Government, to provide the necessary investment our schools urgently need.”
Sir Keir Starmer responded to the question in parliament last Wednesday, dubbing the situation “appalling”, and that he would “ensure” a minister would meet with Mary Glindon MP.
