Campaigners for a fair deal for homeowners affected by crumbling concrete in their homes have vowed to continue their fight for compensation. The newly elected SNP government will face new demands for meetings with the UK RAAC campaign.
Local campaigner Kerry Macintosh said the organisation, of which she is a vice-chair, would be seeking a meeting with the new housing minister. "We want to speak to Shirley Anne Somerville," Kerry told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. "We have requested a meeting with the new minister."
The previous Holyrood administration expressed sympathy with homeowners living with RAAC and those who found themselves moved out of former council houses discovered to have RAAC, but maintained that funding would have to come from the Westminster government. A petition raised before the election has been preserved and remains active in Holyrood.
Despite promising results from meetings with the then housing minister Mairi McAllan at the start of the year, the momentum has slipped back amid the election campaign. The issue of financial help for homeowners remains as elusive as ever.
West Lothian Council is well under way in its repair work to the hundred plus homes it found to have RAAC two years ago in communities including Bathgate, Broxburn and Linlithgow. Additionally, work is under way in Craigshill, Livingston, by Almond Housing, but it will be the start of the winter before residents there know what the final decision of the future of their RAAC homes will be, according to Kerry this week.
Ms Somerville, an experienced SNP minister, was appointed as Cabinet Secretary for Housing following the election last month. Writing on his blog this week, Wilson Chowdhry, the chair of the UK RAAC campaign, said: "What homeowners cannot continue to endure is a cycle of meetings followed by silence, assurances followed by delays, and promises of updates that never arrive. The people affected by the RAAC scandal have waited long enough."
He added: "After years of uncertainty, families deserve honesty and transparency. The continued delays are becoming increasingly difficult to understand and are causing significant distress to homeowners whose futures remain on hold."
