Brighton: Blatchington Mill school update after fire

Students at Blatchington Mill school in Hove have returned to their classrooms full-time following a fire which gutted a number of classrooms.

Firefighters were called to the secondary school at around 5.40pm on January 17 to smoke billowing out of the building and they battled throughout the night to bring it under control.

A fire engine at the scene (Image: Andrew Gardner)

Its 1,600 students were sent home for the rest of the week and made a staggered return to the classrooms twice per week, with students learning from home for the remaining days.

But headteacher Kate Claydon has now welcomed youngsters back to the school five days per week. Some sections were still cordoned off after the half- term break.

She said: "Despite challenging circumstances everyone has been focused on getting the school open to all students. Many aspects of school life are returning to normal, and our students are settling back into their routines."

The design and food rooms were worst affected by the blaze while the canteen, sports hall and library all suffered damage.

An email sent to parents at the start of February outlined the damage caused by the fire. It read:

"Two partitions are being built around the most severely affected part of the school to enable building work to be carried out safely, and a deep clean company are working their way through the other areas before they carry out ‘fogging’ to remove the odour.

 

"The current challenges are to isolate the damaged water routes and the water tank then needs to be cleaned in order for the system to be flushed through to eliminate any risk of harmful bacteria.

 

"We are also awaiting the damaged gas pipes being isolated so that the supply can be reinstated to the science rooms and to our heating system. Until these measures are carried out we will not have toilets, warm water for handwashing, functioning science labs or heating in some areas - we therefore need all of this work to be completed before we can open more of the school. Our expected completion date for this is over half-term.

 

"The phase after this will be the reinstatement of the school kitchen, currently affected by the corrosive combination of smoke and moisture."

The canteen is set to reopen for students today - Monday, February 26.

Kate added: "We are hoping to be able to get the RIC -our library, the Sports Hall and the East Wing Gym back in use relatively soon.

"Our Design and Food rooms are going to take longer to be back in use and we are currently working on other possible solutions to enable practical work in these subjects to start up again.

"None of this could have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of our staff, the support of our families, the local authority and the wider community.”

A 16-year-old girl was arrested after the fire on suspicion of arson and later detained under the mental health act. She has since been released on bail.