Govt puts up $104m for leaky-school repairs, checks

Photo / Martin Sykes

All school buildings put up since 1996 will be checked for leaks, and the Government will spend $82 million to fix the worst problems in the year ahead.

The number of known leaking schools is now 145, double the estimate in September last year. More than 90 are in Auckland.

The worst will benefit from $82 million allocated in the Budget for remedial work in the next year.

More money is expected to be allocated in future Budgets.

Education Minister Anne Tolley says she has also ordered a $22 million physical probe - involving drilling into the walls of all school buildings constructed since 1996 - because no one knows how many are affected.

"I'm really worried about the eventual cost of it. It will be hundreds of millions of dollars."

Ms Tolley said the first phase of the probe would look at schools built between 1996 and 2003 - the period considered the height of the leaky-building crisis.

The investigation would then look at schools constructed between 2003 and 2009 because although the crisis had been identified, some schools built during that time "are still leaking".

An example is Manurewa Intermediate in Manukau City, where work began this week on $1.6 million worth of repairs to the technology block, gymnasium, auditorium, library, offices, staffroom and administration block - all built in the past four to seven years.

Principal Iain Taylor said he felt something "wasn't right" with the buildings when he started at the school 18 months ago.

He called the Ministry of Education, which sent people to investigate.

They found mould on the walls, bubbling paint, swollen wooden floors and rotting timber walls.

A block of six classrooms, built earlier than the other affected buildings, has also started leaking.

"It's disgusting," said 12-year-old Natalie Taumaarua, who has had to move her work around her desk to avoid water dripping from the ceiling. "It was so cold and dirty and all our books were getting wet."

Money for the work now being done is coming from previous capital funding budgets, but repairs to the classroom block are expected to be paid for out of the newly announced $82 million.

Ms Tolley said money would be allocated to the worst-hit schools first.

"We will work our way down the list," she said.

The minister said she had also asked her ministry to look into the possibility of taking legal action against contractors or companies responsible for the leaking buildings.

But she suspected many of the companies, as in Manurewa Intermediate's case, no longer existed.

Ms Tolley said the extent of damage in the 145 schools the ministry knew about varied greatly.

Some, like Tahatai Coast School in Papamoa, which needs $7 million in work, are expected to be completely rebuilt, while others will be repaired.

"I'm just surprised at how long it's been left," she said.

"We have been talking about leaky homes for 10 years ... so I'm just amazed that the education sector and the Government haven't been looking at leaking schools.

"You can't have a child sitting in a classroom with water running on to their books, you just can't."

Other Government departments appear far less affected by leaky building problems, although the Auckland District Health Board has spent $280,000 in the past year fixing water leaks in its Te Whetu Tawera acute mental health unit in Grafton.