Anglican academy trust broke own asbestos management plan and exposed pupils and staff to the substance, parents allege in official complaint

The Bay Learning Trust is at the centre of controversy surrounding asbestos removal works at Lancashire’s biggest school.

 

A multi-academy trust broke its own asbestos management plan for its largest school, and thus has exposed more than 1,000 pupils and staff to disturbed asbestos from the start of the 2025-26 academic year, a group of parents has alleged in a formal complaint.

The Bay Learning Trust, which runs Ripley St Thomas CofE Academy in Lancaster, Lancashire, failed to follow its own rules by allowing an asbestos contractor to appoint a company to carry out checks following work to remove the substance from a teaching block last summer, documentary evidence appears to show. The subsequent test resulted in a clean bill of health for the work.

But when staff complained about the state of the building, including widespread evidence of dust, and the trust then ordered checks by Lancashire County Council’s asbestos specialists, Lancashire County Scientific Services (LCSS), this found disturbed asbestos in two places.

Despite recommendations in that report that debris containing the substance be removed, it was detected on two further occasions within the following four months, with the teaching block never having been fully closed to pupils and staff.

The evidential trail also shows how, a week after disturbed asbestos was found for a second time by LCSS, the trust dispensed with its services.

For the parents and teacher who have raised concerns about this case, it underscores health and safety weaknesses in the academies policy, with trusts seemingly now having the power to bypass local authority oversight if they choose.

The local Labour MP, Cat Smith, has told the trust that the complaint of the parents – who include a hospital consultant who specialises in cancer conditions including that usually caused by asbestos exposure – made for “troubling reading”. She said the trust should consider LCSS’s re-appointment.

The trust has said that the safety and wellbeing of pupils, staff and visitors is “always its highest priority,” and that the Health and Safety Executive had contacted it this month “to confirm that it was satisfied that the school had taken all appropriate action, worked with qualified experts and followed all recommendations”. The parents, though, are calling on the trust to disclose its communications with the HSE.

The investigation which follows draws on interviews with a teacher and three parents who have submitted a still-ongoing formal complaint to the trust, and on documents released through an Environmental Information Regulations response to them.