Crumbling: Cardiff shuts its concert hall
OrchestrasMessage from the managewment of the delapidated St David’s Hall:
Unfortunately, St David’s Hall will close with immediate effect for at least the next four weeks starting today (Thursday 7 September) to undertake additional checks on the Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) panels in the building.
More information can be found in Cardiff Council’s official statement here: https://bit.ly/3r2PwXk
All shows within this four-week window will be postponed. We will contact you as soon as we can confirm rescheduled dates.
St David’s Hall isn’t crumbling. Here’s the latest information from Cardiff Council:
‘The council has been aware of RAAC in St David’s Hall and the need to manage it from a health and safety viewpoint since 2021, and it has always followed government guidelines and advice to ensure the building was safe.
‘A building management and health and safety strategy has been implemented at the venue for the past 18 months. This included regular inspections by independent structural engineers with specific RAAC expertise.
‘Throughout this time no issues were raised about the condition of RAAC in the building and there was no evidence of deterioration – and this remains the case.
‘However, the Council has continued to engage with its insurers and expert structural engineers and, based on advice received today [7 September] from those experts, we believe it is prudent and responsible to carry out intrusive surveys to further reassure ourselves and the public on the safety of the Hall. This will require drilling into panels to confirm their interior construction and to determine if any further work is required to ensure continuing safety.
‘Consequently, we will be bringing structural engineers – who are RAAC experts – back on site to do fresh tests on RAAC panels in the building.
‘We expect this procedure could take at least 4 weeks, and we will look to re-open the Hall as soon as possible, dependent on any action which may or may not be required.’
Full statement here: https://www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk/latest-news/temporary-closure-of-st-david-s-hall-to-take-place-with-immediate-effect/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September%202023%20-%20whole%20database%20closure%20email%20databasae%202&utm_content=September%202023%20-%20whole%20database%20closure%20email%20databasae%202+CID_89626fcef0f0c33c8a083ede852f452f&utm_source=MailManager&utm_term=here
The linked Cardiff Council
statement (which tops the News section of St David’s Hall’s website) appears to imply that
none of the regular inspections to date has been intrusive (i.e., drilling into the panels). This worries me because it has been
widely reported that panels which show no defects in a non-intrusive sight inspection may be internally defective, and if so may collapse with very little notice. I understand that the St David’s Hall’s panels are in the main roof, directly above the main auditorium…
There are noninvasive evaluation techniques that can monitor, for instance, the integrity of the reinforcing steel metalwork. Monitoring the physical properties of the aerated concrete noninvasively is more difficult; for example, it would be hard to use ultrasound to detect cracks (let alone microcracks) because of the ubiquitous aeration bubbles in the material. I gather that the lifetime of RAAC, at least in some applications, is only about 30 years, which is why several schools in Britain have had to close rooms with older RAAC ceilings, pending testing, which also seems the case with St. David’s Hall.
Is ‘managewment ‘ the Welsh spelling?
no it’s a hidden dogwhistle to imply that the people crying about infrastructural failures in the UK are all… well… jews
Let’s hope that asbestos fibres don’t exit the panels, when the drills are withdrawn.
This monstrosity should be knocked down and rebuilt in any case. The worst artists entrance in the world through the back of the shopping precinct..
Also a travesty Cardiff City Council have sold it off ( without public or user consultation) to a company who stages pop shows, and now have the audacity to suggest it is them who have to foot the bill for repairs as the new owners.
Thank goodness for Hoddinott Hall and the Millennium Centre instead of this concrete jungle!