MORE than 80 per cent of York’s council-run schools have asbestos containing materials on their sites, The Press can reveal.

A Freedom of Information Request to City of York Council provided data on the number of schools recorded as having asbestos.

There are 63 publicly funded schools currently in operation in York, including community and voluntary controlled schools that are maintained by the local authority as well as academies that are often run together within a group of academies – known as a Multi Academy Trust (MAT).

Twenty-eight of the 63 schools in the York area are maintained by the council - of these five do not have asbestos containing materials (ACM’s) present. This equates to 82 per cent of schools maintained by the council on record as having ACMs.

Information for other for multi academy trust schools is not held by the council, meaning the true figure could be different.

City of York Council said it pays “careful attention” to buildings where asbestos is present.

A spokesperson for the council said: “As part of the work we do on the maintenance of maintained schools, careful attention is given to the safety of works where asbestos is present.

“The work of contractors is monitored and quality assured to ensure that they are working to the relevant health and safety standards, and in schemes where it is possible to remove existing asbestos this is prioritised as part of the delivery of the scheme.”

It comes after the launch of thinktank ResPublica’s ‘Airtight on Asbestos’ campaign, warning that the threat of asbestos didn’t disappear with its ban in 1999. According to ResPublica, 80 per cent of schools still contain asbestos. Between 2001 and 2016, at least 305 teaching and education professionals died of mesothelioma.

The campaign is calling for three changes to the way asbestos is monitored:

  • Routinely monitor the air our children and teachers breathe in schools.
  • Introduce a safe environmental limit for airborne asbestos fibres.
  • Replace CLASP and system built schools, which are known to contain large amounts of the most harmful forms of asbestos, the thinktank said.

A spokesperson for the Airtight on Asbestos campaign said: “How can we be sure that today’s teachers and children aren’t being exposed? “Unless we act now, there’s a risk that by the time they live long enough to see the effects of asbestos poisoning, it will already be too late.

“Introduced in the 50s, ‘CLASP’ and system built schools are known to contain large amounts of the most harmful forms of asbestos. Over 3,000 of these structures are still being used as classrooms everyday, in some cases decades past their design life. We’re calling on the government to prioritise their replacement.”​

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), asbestos can found in a many of the common materials used in the building trade - from certain coatings to roofing felt.

Naturally occuring asbestos also exists.

The HSE already requires buildings to be kept up to date with the asbestos risk register - required by law under 2012 asbestos regulations.