Grenfell legacy is a tough issue for homeowners - Andy Wightman

One of the most intractable constituency issues I’ve been dealing with in Parliament is what has become know as the problem with zero-valued homes

Andy Wightman has quit the Greens over "intolerance"

These are properties where a prospective lender refuses to lend to a purchaser because they are unsure what cladding is on the building and whether or not it is safe. As a result, many constituents are sitting in homes which they cannot sell disrupting their career, family life and finances.

In the wake of the Grenfell fire, lenders and others are paying much closer attention to the safety of cladding. Many flatted properties across the City are clad with a variety of panel systems which may or may not pose a fire risk. This is not the fault of homeowners. Even though, under Scots law they own the external wall, the system of buying and selling houses in Scotland means that no-one is told when they buy a flat how it was built and what materials are present in it.

Compare the situation to buying a car and you can see how mad this is. New cars typically come with a document listing all the regulatory certificates required by various regulators in relation to electrics, braking systems and so on. If there is ever any need to demonstrate that your car meets the relevant standards you have the documents to prove that it does.

You can spend ten times as much on a house and you will be told nothing. It may not even have been built in accordance with the materials specified in the building warrant. Because most new homes are built speculatively and the customer is not involved in the process of construction, there is a very strong incentive by developers to cut corners.

How to fix this remains unclear. Some homeowners have managed to secure the all-clear from a building surveyor that satisfies lenders. Others are stuck in properties with dangerous cladding. Remedial work will be required but who pays? The Scottish Government has belatedly appointed a working party on the issue late last year but it is still to report. If you are still affected by this problem, do please let me know.

Covid scrutiny

The new strain of coronavirus which has led to the current lockdown adds 0.4-0.7 to the R or reproduction number (which if is is over 1 means that the virus is on average spread by an infected person to more than one person). The estimate of the R number has never been less than 0.5 even with all the restrictions we have faced. With another 0.5 or so baked in by the new virus, we are now in a situation where it is going to be very much more difficult to suppress the spread of this new strain of the virus.

There are now more people in hospital with covid than at any time since the beginning of the pandemic. Given we are in the middle of winter with hospitals already under stress, it is imperative that people limit all social interactions, wear face-coverings, avoid crowded places and maintain personal hygiene and social distancing. Please do observe the current rules and regulations.

Andy Wightman is Independent MSP for Lothian Region