NDTScan carries out RAAC surveys in Banbury for schools, hospitals, councils, housing providers, universities and commercial owners. Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete was used in roofs, floors and walls from the late 1950s to the mid 1990s, and a great deal of it is still in service across Oxfordshire. NDTScan is the UK's specialist in identifying it, assessing it and telling an owner plainly what to do next.
The Department for Education's list of education settings with confirmed RAAC, published in February 2024, includes 2 settings in Oxfordshire, among them Abingdon and Witney College and Wallingford School. The Department of Health and Social Care's list of hospital sites with confirmed RAAC includes Churchill Hospital in Oxfordshire. Those are the buildings that made the published lists, which cover schools, colleges and NHS sites. They are named here as evidence that the construction is present in Oxfordshire, not as NDTScan projects. Around Banbury the same roof and floor planks are in council buildings, housing, leisure centres, retail units and industrial sheds that nobody has counted.
NDTScan surveys RAAC in Banbury in two stages that are usually completed on the same visit. First, identification: GPR and the plank's own signature, its width, its transverse reinforcement and its bearing detail, establish plank by plank whether the element is RAAC at all. Second, condition: each confirmed plank is inspected for cracking, deflection, bearing length, water ingress, corrosion and past repair, and the results are classified in line with IStructE guidance. The report says what was found, what was not found and how confident each reading is.
The most expensive mistake in Banbury, as everywhere else, is to act on RAAC before it has been understood. Whole buildings have been closed on the strength of a visual inspection that could not tell RAAC from hollowcore. NDTScan's position is that identification and condition assessment come first, remediation second, and the report has to be good enough to design from.
Scan before you repair. That is the standing advice for every Banbury client, and the reason NDTScan reports what the concrete contains before anyone specifies what to do about it.
Services Available in Banbury
- RAAC Identification Survey GPR based, plank by plank identification of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in roofs, floors and walls across Banbury. Confirms what the element is made of without opening it up, and records plank widths, reinforcement and bearing details as evidence.
- RAAC Condition Assessment Plank level inspection of confirmed RAAC for cracking, deflection, bearing length, water ingress, corrosion and previous repairs, classified in line with IStructE guidance. Reported so a Oxfordshire engineer or estates team can act on it directly.
- RAAC Management and Reinspection Monitoring regimes, reinspection intervals and management plans for RAAC that is being kept in service, plus expert input where a Banbury owner needs an independent second opinion on a survey or a remediation proposal.
RAAC in and around Banbury
Instructions in and around Banbury follow the RAAC lifecycle. Identification surveys where the construction of a flat or shallow roof is uncertain. Condition assessment of planks already known to be RAAC. Risk classification to IStructE guidance to support closure, propping or continued use decisions. Management plans and reinspection for planks kept in service. Independent review where a Oxfordshire owner has been given a survey or a remediation quote and wants a second opinion before spending. NDTScan works for the Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Office of Government Property funded bodies as well as private owners, and attends Banbury from its Oxford base.
NDTScan also provides RAAC surveys in Oxford, Bicester, Didcot, Abingdon-on-Thames, Witney and Carterton and the rest of Oxfordshire. The rest of the region is covered from the South East RAAC surveys page, and the service itself is described on the RAAC surveys page.
About NDTScan
NDTScan is a specialist non-destructive testing company based in Oxford and led by Neil Smuts, author of The RAAC Book. It is the UK's specialist in the identification and analysis of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, and a Level 4 UKCSS Operator, the first in the UK to achieve that certification. RAAC surveys in Banbury sit alongside the company's concrete scanning and structural condition survey work, and every report is written to a standard suitable for engineering acceptance, insurers and dispute work.