Buckton Fields Primary School in Northampton is the third school constructed by Caledonian Modular that has been ordered to close this week over structural safety concerns
Buckton Fields Primary School in Northampton only opened in September 2021 and has been ordered to close by the Department for Education DfE.
The closure of the Northampton modular school follows the closure of Sir Frederick Gibberd College and Haygrove School this week.
All three schools were built by the now-defunct Caledonian Modular, which went into administration in March 2022.
Caledonian Modular has worked on at least other 15 state schools in the UK
Following the closures of these schools, the government is investigating all projects where the contractor has been involved.
Commenting on the recent investigations, education minister Nick Gibb told BBC Essex: “It identified issues that related to the structural integrity of the buildings, weakening its ability for example to withstand extreme events such as high winds or a big snowfall or indeed a collision from a vehicle.”
When asked if the modular schools constructed by Caledonian could collapse in the event of extreme weather, Gibb said: “That’s the risk and we are not prepared to take any risk with children, or teachers or staff’s lives in a school, and that’s why we intervened very quickly.”
