Derbyshire schools at risk of overheating

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The lack of air conditioning in Derbyshire’s schools and care homes is one of the greatest risks and financial challenges posed by climate change, a meeting has heard.

Derbyshire County Council held a discussion on the risks posed to the authority by climate change, including all those associated with “failure to adapt to extreme, adverse, and more variable weather”.

Among the immediate risks already faced by the authority are overheating in care homes and schools, flooding, and damage to highways and infrastructure.

A core problem, discussed in the meeting, would be installing air conditioning in all existing schools, saying this would be both expensive and logistically complex, with the process somewhat easier with new-builds.

Papers for the meeting detailed: “The recent changes in the UK’s climate (warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier summers and increased extreme rainfall events) are projected to continue and to increase. 

“The uncertainty around the scale and rapidity of change makes planning and adaptation decisions more complex. 

“For example, buildings will require differing levels of shading, insulation and active cooling to withstand 35°C or 40°C external temperatures. 

“Roads being built to cope with higher summer temperatures will still need to be resilient in floods or freezing conditions.”

It says the council is required to consider impacts to high risk vulnerable groups which “find it hard to cool themselves efficiently once temperatures rise above 26°C, below the level to be classified as a heatwave”.

Tom Veitch, the council’s environmental sustainability manager, said: “If there is an ability to meet that risk, and schools are a great example, we have a lot of ageing schools and schools by their very nature are hot environments because of the tarmac surrounding them, and it is an issue that needs escalating I would say.”

Claire Brailsford, executive director for place, said: “It is absolutely embedded that if we are building a new school that that design work is being built in with shaded areas and if there is air conditioning, and also if we are thinking of going in and doing repair works.

“Some of the retrofit elements in schools not in need of repair and are not brand new is where those challenges will come and there will obviously be resource implications.”

Mr Veitch also said: “The ability to invest in any of our buildings is currently a challenge. These are areas that all councils will need to start thinking about. 

“From what we have seen this year it is the care services that have been particularly impacted, adults and children’s services, where there are lots of complications that are not easy to escalate.”

He said the council has not yet carried out a full analysis of how much it would cost to retrofit its schools and care homes with air conditioning and other improvements, saying this level of work would require external consultants.

The council report mentions a review of existing air-conditioning facilities at the authority is being undertaken to assess “which cooler spaces are available for employees during heatwaves”. 

Meanwhile, the council is also assessing a “pressure bid to undertake low-cost measures at critical sites”.

The report details: “A robust process will be necessary to prioritise investment.”

Ms Brailsford also said: “Another example I would give is around highways, where we are actually looking at materials which have a higher melting temperature, which historically we wouldn’t need to have done, and it is also more expensive.

“It means that if we are buying those materials it may mean that the consequence is we are not using as much of that material and as a result not carrying out as many extensive repairs across as many roads. There will be a limit in those resources.”