83 years ago this week, the German Luftwaffe began its Blitzkreig on London. The UK capital was bombed systematically for 56 of the following 57 nights.
In the air, the British response was swift with the Royal Air Force locked in a bloody battle to regain air superiority in the nation’s skies.
With buildings destroyed, damaged and severely undermined, the response on the ground was equally swift and decisive. A group of London-based demolition contractors were pulled together – legend has it that this was at the behest of Winston Churchill himself – and they were tasked with making safe those building that had been so heavily bombed and damaged. That hastily-assembled group would form an alliance that would one day become the National Federation of Demolition Contractors.
With bombs still falling and with unstable buildings all around them, they went to work for the good of the capital and of the nation.
Compare and contrast that swift and decisive action with the response to the presence of crumbly Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) in the nation’s schools and hospitals.
At the very top, decisive action has been replaced by denial, obfuscation, political in-fighting and name-calling. While the incumbent prime minister attempts to place a positive spin on his apparent cuts to school funding, the leader of the opposition claimed the country was being run by “cowboy builders”.
With hundreds of schools facing partial or complete closure and tens of thousands of children seeing their education interrupted yet again, the back and forth kicking of the RAAC political football does neither side of the house any credit.
Yet, just below the level of Government, the response has been even more poorly handled.
The Construction Leadership Council – an organisation as in-touch with the modern world as Winston Churchill – is to face down the RAAC problem.
But it is not doing so with a co-ordinated assembly of construction’s massed ranks. It is not deploying equipment or putting boots on the ground. Instead, it is taking a two-stage approach.
Phase 1: Hold a meeting. Phase 2: Assemble an expert panel.
How very Dunkirk-spirit and Churchillian of them. Schools and hospitals are crumbling, parents are fearful for the safety of their children, and the CLC response is a double chin-wag.
This is the living embodiment of those infuriating people that cc everyone into an email to (a) show they have acted while (b) they have actually done nothing at all.
One thing that has not changed since 1940 is the fact that the demolition industry stands ready to do its duty. They have the will, the experience, expertise and equipment to carry out a RAAC blitz of their very own. All they need now is the order to go.
Unfortunately, rather than coming from a true statesman, that order will come from someone far more concerned with their popularity rating. And rather than being co-ordinated by individuals focused on the good of the country, the response is being co-ordinated by individuals that prefer meetings and arse-covering circular emails to any real action.
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