Dundee is now the centre of the Raac crisis is Scotland.
It’s a sentence our readers may have seen more than once this week.
An alarming statistic with close to 900 households in the city affected by this plight.
There are more homes containing the defective concrete in Monifieth.
That is why on Monday, The Courier launched our Trapped By Raac campaign.
These people need help.
They need assistance from every level of government – local, Scottish and UK.
Only with all partners working together can a sustainable and achievable solution be found to this crisis.
And it is a crisis.
Homes are unsafe and unsellable, there is the very real fear of homelessness and bankruptcy.
Insurance quotes and mortgages are up in the air.
And it is having a devastating mental toll on those caught up in the affair through no fault of their own.
A nightmare scenario for everyone affected
At The Courier, we have told you some of these people’s stories already.
The retired couple hoping to downsize due to health issues but now stuck in their house.
A husband and wife with two children no longer able to move to a place that provides a garden for their kids.
An inherited flat that has become a financial weight around a grieving daughter’s neck.
These are just some of the cases, we will share more with you in the coming weeks.
It’s a nightmare scenario for homeowners and tenants alike.
What they cannot afford is finger pointing and a passing of the buck.
Yet that is exactly what we appear to have.
Instead of a combined approach from all levels of government, there appears to be an air of ‘not my problem’.
People were mis-sold a product
This is an issue for the homeowners especially, with the council washing their hands of them and, so far, the UK and Scottish governments providing no solution.
These people bought their homes in good faith, either directly through the Right to Buy scheme, or in the interim from a third party.
It may have taken decades to come to light, but, essentially, they have been mis-sold a product.
They have been mis-sold a product en masse.
It is the duty of those in power to step in and help.
These homeowners and tenants cannot be abandoned to deal with the issue themselves.
They cannot afford it.
And what happens when the problem intensifies – when another 500 Raac homes become so unsafe that they need to be demolished?
That is what is happening right now in Aberdeen, with folk offered a fraction of their properties’ recent worth.
It is a slow motion catastrophe in the making.
The campaigners need 10,000 people to sign this petition to give them a voice at Westminster – so we’re asking our readers to help them achieve that goal.
It is their homes they’re trying to save after all.
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