David Knight: Torry Raac residents need concrete guarantees they will see meaningful compensation
But with a combination of dogged determination and unshakeable belief in justice on our side, eventual triumph is a possibility.
We only have to look at the struggles of wrongly-jailed postmasters, the tainted blood scandal and the damaged babies in Corby, where many families of Scottish descent were trapped in a catastrophic chemical reclamation disaster.
A new scandal is engulfing the 'Raac families' in Aberdeen with homes rendered inhabitable by a covering of dodgy sub-standard concrete.
Will this prove to be on a similar scale to previous examples of bewildering actions by public officials causing outrage?
Residents are also banging their heads against walls, but in this case real ones affected by a kind of concrete cancer.
The 'newly-crowned' Lord Gove of Torry nailed his colours to the mast of the Aberdeen cause.
Lord Gove, who grew up in Aberdeen before becoming a Cabinet minister, told the P&J that the finger-pointing of blame had to stop and a solution found at national and local government levels.
He has strong family roots in Aberdeen and an obvious warmth towards the Granite City; hence his choice of title.
Whether passionate Toryism has attracted reciprocal warmth from the city is debatable.
But tangible support for the P&J Raac campaign might prove to be a turning point in this relationship: even a lasting legacy of respect for defending the interests of the worst-affected families in the Balnagask area of Torry.
These are the private owners in Raac homes, whose property values have eroded far faster than the concrete itself – losing up to £50,000 each.
Balnagask translates in Gaelic to 'village in the hollow'; village in the pit of despair now.
The real test for Gove is how hard he applies himself with effective contributions from a new position of privilege; to talk the walk, as they say.
The Raac families really are on the rack.
The medieval torture rack tore people apart.
Doctors in Torry report that many Raac owners facing financial ruin are turning to drink and anti-depressants to try to cope with their lives being ripped apart.
We all have individual daily struggles on a personal level which help us empathise with those fighting the system on a much bigger scale.
As the Fortunes (old 60s band) sang, 'You've got your troubles, I've got mine.'
Have you ever felt helpless while challenging a powerful yet seemingly incompetent bureaucracy?
Lately, I've been banging my head against a brick wall, too: an imaginary brick wall held together by a plastering of red tape.
But it's the kind of personal anguish which often remains hidden from public view.
My aged relative is one of the poorest pension-credit recipients Starmer and Reeves made such a show of protecting (in public at least) after their outrageous and ill-judged mugging of old people receiving winter energy payments.
Her story begins with a discovery that weekly pension credit payments from the Department for Work and Pensions stopped inexplicably.
She's stuck at the bottom of the pile: gripped by dementia in a care home and suffering at least two other of the biggest diseases we fear most.
Yet she's still forced to cough up £5000 a month for care fees after being forced to sell her house; that pot is vanishing as fast as a brick thrown into a fast river.
So her pension-credit support is a big deal; by the time we found out she was already £500 out of pocket.
Endless phone calls to DWP.
It seemed the 'system' didn't like a miniscule private pension she received from her late husband, which was about to increase by one pound to the grand total of £48 a month – yes, a month.
The potential headlines ran through my head: 'Sick woman, 92, has pension credit axed by DWP for sake of 25p a week – so much for welfare state.'
This explanation was soon jettisoned for something far more familiar to us all – the ubiquitous 'IT glitch'.
Equanimity was restored by DWP, but only after 10 days of exasperating phone calls and helpless dread.
Call handlers were friendly, but the system so cold.
They never wrote to flag up the problem, so I doubt if there will ever be a proper explanation.
We were stressed out for almost two weeks, so how much worse are the Raac families feeling with no sign of relief in sight?
Natural justice points to some form of realistic compensation instead of what they have been offered so far.
But how long could that take? Aberdeen City Council is in such a dire state that it makes you wonder where they would find the money.
I'm not being flippant, but residents need something more concrete than that.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Record
25 minutes ago
- Daily Record
Scottish Labour will reform how we order ferries to avoid another costly fiasco
Writing in his Daily Record column, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar says there can never be another repeat of the SNP's ferry fiasco. Most people in Scotland know about the SNP ferry fiasco. For the majority of us it's a sorry tale of government failure – a botched contract and lapse in oversight leading to spiralling costs and years of delays. Two ferries, initially priced at £97 million now costing closer to half a billion. Hundreds of millions of pounds poured into the bottomless blackhole of SNP incompetence instead of going to roads, hospitals and schools. But for island communities it is about so much more than wasted money – it is about wasted potential. The delays to these new ferries mean vessels well past their recommended lifespan are still being used on lifeline routes. As a result, cancellations caused by ferry breakdowns have soared in recent years, rising by 531 per cent since 2015. Since 2023 alone, 10,000 ferries have been cancelled. I spent part of last week in the Western Isles and almost every conversation I had came back to ferries – from businesses struggling to stay afloat to people unable to access healthcare. For island communities these cancellations are not just numbers on a spreadsheet – they are families separated, appointments missed, revenue lost, tourism damaged, and goods blocked. The Scottish islands have some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, outstanding food and drink, and unique heritage sites. People come from across the globe to visit these attractions, but this is under threat as a result of SNP failure. Tourists facing unreliable ferries and unaffordable planes could choose to go somewhere else, leaving our islands poorer. On our islands, everyone knows the problems – what they want to know is how we can fix them. We need to change how we procure ferries so that we can modernise our rusting fleet and ensure there can never be a repeat of the current fiasco. But we also need to fundamentally overhaul how we run ferries so we can restore accountability in the system and I am committed to that fundamental reform of ferry governance. Cluttered governance structures mean everyone has someone else to blame. The buck gets passed from the Scottish Government to Transport Scotland to CalMac to CMAL and back again. It goes round and round in circles and no-one is ever held responsible. Islanders have been systematically ignored by SNP Ministers and their labyrinth of quangos. They have been frozen out of decision-making on issues that affect their lives and livelihoods. That needs to change - and some tokenistic appointments won't cut it. I want to see local communities at the heart of decision-making *with a guaranteed voice in a reformed system.* I want to strip back bureaucracy and make Ministers accountable for delivery – not some remote quangos. Really, I just want islanders to have a ferry system that works. The ferry fiasco is a symbol of what has gone wrong with the SNP. It tells the story of a dysfunctional SNP government that is bereft of ideas but unwilling to listen. For islanders, for taxpayers, for everyone – we need a new direction. Nicola Sturgeon The publication of Nicola Sturgeon's memoirs has unsurprisingly generated a huge amount of chatter. I can understand why people are interested – Nicola Sturgeon has been a central figure in Scottish politics for decades and her personal life has generated a fair few headlines too. Despite that, it hasn't made its way on to my summer reading list. I'm not interested in dwelling on the past when we have such significant challenges to deal with in the present and such huge opportunities in our future. Under the SNP almost one in six Scots are stuck on an NHS waiting list, schools are tumbling down the international league tables, and record numbers of children are in temporary accommodation, and dealing with those issues is my focus. But I want to do so much more than simply clean up the SNP's mess. There is no shortage of talent and potential in this country – people just need a government that is as ambitious for Scotland as they are. After almost two decades of SNP government, Scotland will get a chance next year to choose a new direction with Scottish Labour. Frankly – that can't come soon enough. Arnish yard Arnish fabrication yard in Lewis is a hub of skills and expertise. The site was under threat until the Labour government stepped in to help secure its future – and now it is thriving. This is the difference it makes to have a government on the side of working people.
Daily Record
25 minutes ago
- Daily Record
Scots MP blasts Nicola Sturgeon for refusing to say she was wrong on gender reform in book
Joani Reid said the former first minister's "deranged gender reform bill... would have endangered thousands of women." A Scottish Labour MP has blasted Nicola Sturgeon for failing to "admit she was wrong" about gender reform in her book. Joani Reid said the former first minister's "deranged gender reform bill... would have endangered thousands of women." She also blasted Sturgeon's memoir - which was released last week - as "self-serving" with "all the same narcissistic traits, arrogance and moral superiority we saw from her in government." East Kilbride and Strathaven MP Reid told the Record: "It's hard to think of a fall from grace so spectacular - Nicola Sturgeon was once hailed across the UK, including by people who should have known better, as some sort of progressive beacon. It all went to her head and she got drunk on her own hype. "Her deranged 'gender reform' bill would have allowed creepy men pretending to be women access to our toilets and female-only spaces. She ignored legal and expert warnings and anyone raising common sense safety issues was branded as bigots. "It was a crazy plan that would have endangered thousands of women. Fortunately, it was outside the powers of the Scottish Government, but they spent a fortune getting humiliated in the Supreme Court and yet she still can't admit she was wrong. "This self-serving, self-regarding memoir is full of petty score-settling and reveals all the same narcissistic traits, arrogance and moral superiority we saw from her in government. "Scotland needed a leader who would protect our rights, not sacrifice them on the altar of political vanity. Beyond the gimmicks and woke virtue signalling, she achieved little of substance during her eight years at the helm, and it all caught up with her in the end." Sturgeon's memoir, Frankly, was officially released on Thursday. Copies of it were on sale in Waterstones shops earlier in the week. In it, she accused JK Rowling of helping create a a "toxic" climate around Scotland's gender reform debate. The MSP said the Harry Potter author's decision to wear a T-shirt branding her a 'destroyer of women's rights' marked the point at which "rational debate" on the issue became "impossible" and "any hope of finding common ground disappeared". Sturgeon's Government passed a bill which would have made it possible for trans people to change gender without a medical diagnosis. But the bill was stopped from becoming law by Tory Scotland Secretary Alister Jack, who said it breached UK Equalities law. At the same time, there was public outrage after convicted double rapist Isla Bryson - who identified as female - was initially sent to a women's prison. Sturgeon then refused to say if Bryson was a man or woman, but said last week that male rapists should "probably" lose the right to choose their gender. Earlier this year there was a landmark ruling where the Supreme Court said that the words 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex. The SNP was approached for comment.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Glen Rosa a reminder of challenges facing UK shipbuilding
The themes of these relevant and supporting strategies crossed my mind earlier this month as close to home, MV Glen Rosa passed a further significant step on its journey into service as it left dry dock for interior fit out back at the quayside of Ferguson Marine. I think most of us now are aware of the complexity of the design and the build difficulties that have resulted in late delivery. However, for me, the images of the now near finished ship in dry dock really illustrate the impressive scale of what has been achieved by the Ferguson team, and it's a fitting image that summarises the impressive complex engineering that the whole system of the ship contains. Recognising, and having pride in the engineering achievement is not intended to dismiss the cost to both public purse and loss of service to island communities that the long delays to delivery have brought. It's important to address the major errors by all stakeholders through this part of the yard's history, but equally 'we are where we are', and now it's time to look forward more than back. The £160m award earlier this year for seven small electric ferries to a Poland yard rightly raised questions about why no consideration for social value was included in the bidding process, despite the UK's current National Shipbuilding Strategy calling for public tenders to include for this. The call for this inclusion rightly seeks only that there is a level playing field to compensate for significantly higher levels of state investment, favourable tax incentives, or lower labour rates out with the UK. In this case the awarding body deemed the risk of legal challenge sufficient enough to not include it. Read more: It's a theme that's painfully present here in Scotland given that Alexander Dennis is currently fighting to keep their Scottish manufacturing operation open, after a deeply disappointing outcome from the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge (ScotZEB2) award last year. In that case over 80% of the £42m Scottish Government grant ended up funding the manufacture of those buses principally in China and also Egypt. Getting the balance right between risk and reward for public procurement funded by taxpayers is critical, and it's hard not to perceive that elsewhere the appetite to 'lean in' is higher. For Ferguson Marine, its recent contract award by BAE Systems for build of three sections for HMS Birmingham is more than welcome, but we should be clear that this alone will not sustain the business in the long term. If we lose the business, we also lose the social, economic and community benefits to the wider Inverclyde area, and indeed Scotland, that its high-quality employment and training continues to deliver. At this risk of stating the obvious, to sustain a shipyard, it needs to build whole ships from design to delivery. Module build will keep a key section of the engineering fabrication, welding and technical support occupied, but full ships and their complex design and development employ and grow a much wider skillset, and there needs to be a pipeline of demand that keeps those wider skills current and trains new additions for the future. This isn't a challenge just for Ferguson Marine either, it's a pattern that's replicated across the UK, where outside of naval shipbuilding, the number of commercial ships designed, built and commissioned from scratch is far too low for an island nation that has and will continue to depend on maritime connectivity to sustain ourselves. If we return to the Strategic Defence Review, its candid tone of being ready for a 'move to warfighting readiness' still makes me sit up straight, with the planning - and capacity - for that readiness a sharp reality check. A wider, stronger, UK shipbuilding enterprise that includes a step change in the number of commercial vessels is the answer, and build contracts procured with public funds should be our starting point. To go a step further, there is a valid argument that given the current precarious geopolitical climate, we should consider the potential dual use of publicly procured ships in terms of what role they could play in the event of the UK being pulled into conflict and so review their build in terms of sovereign capability. In the first instance however, the procurement process for the replacement for the MV Lord of the Isles, built by Fergusons thirty-five years ago, is the front and centre opportunity to make sure that the public investment to sustain and grow Ferguson Marine over the last decade has not been in vain. The yard's own call for a direct award under the relevant provisions of the Procurement Act 2023 has gathered wider support politically and regionally, and my understanding is that consideration is underway as part of the wider procurement planning. Let's hope the evaluation on that balance of risk is in favour of sustaining a business of significant importance to Scotland, and when we consider shipbuilding capacity, the UK too. Paul Sheerin is chief executive of Scottish Engineering
