LIBERTON High School had been pushed down a priority list for repairs due to budget pressures within the City of Edinburgh Council.
Surveys completed in 2012-13 revealed that £25 million was needed to be spent over five years to repair and maintain the city's high schools, including "significant" work at Liberton.
However, as the council did not have enough money to carry out all of the recommended work across its Children and Families estate, it adopted a "prioritisation" policy for investments between this year and 2019, aimed at ensuring establishments remained in a satisfactory condition.
Liberton High School had been given a 'B' grade following its inspection, meaning it was deemed to be "performing adequately but showing minor deterioration", despite needing at least £1m of repairs in the first year of the programme.
As a result, it was classed as "priority two", behind buildings that needed work to ensure they were wind and water tight and those that had been given a C grade, meaning they were "showing major defects and/or not operating adequately".
A decision was also taken to focus available funding on roofs, external walls, windows and doors, mechanical services and electrical services in order to "keep buildings operational".
The council said that the wall that had collapsed yesterday had not been identified during the surveys as requiring repair.
Andy Gray, the local authority's head of schools, refused to be drawn when asked whether there had been any concerns about the safety of the building, instead saying the council would be working with the Health and Safety Executive and police to determine exactly what had happened.
Council papers from May 2013 showed that a "building fabric upgrade" was needed at the school. A later report in December said that an upgrade to rendering, cladding panels, wiring and heating were among the repairs needed. Mechanical improvements were needed in the gym area, the report said, although there was no mention of any need for structural improvements in the part of the school where the wall collapsed.
The school was opened in 1959, with the PE accommod-ation upgraded in the 1980s.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article