Torry families Trapped by Raac charged us with pinning down Aberdeen City Council co-leader Christian Allard – to answer their questions on the concrete crisis.
After spending months with these Balnagask homeowners, we’ve heard their concerns and criticisms, shared their stories and launched a campaign to join them in a fight for justice.
In an exclusive interview with Lindsay Bruce – for the first time since the Raac bombshell dropped – we put Councillor Allard in the hot seat.
We asked:
- Have you and your administration done enough for Aberdeen homeowners?
- Was Housing Minister Paul McLennan truthful in saying ACC have sent no “detailed proposals” to the Scottish Government?
- Are you open to other options or is your mind set on demolition?
- Does ACC have a responsibility to homeowners?
- Has ACC been negligent in not dealing with ‘Siporex’ (Raac) sooner?
- Will failing homeowners be your legacy?
Here is what happened when Lindsay grilled Councillor Allard on the concrete crisis…
Questions over ‘one-to-one’ support
LB: Christian, you recently mentioned ‘one-to-one support’ on TV news. My phone went wild. Upset homeowners say they’ve had no such thing?
CA: They all got a letter.
LB: Okay, let’s pause there. If you received a letter from your doctor, would that be the same as getting support from your doctor?
CA: What do you think the letters say?
LB: I’ve read some of the letters.
CA: So what does it say?
LB: You tell me what it says?
CA: It says contact us for support and we’ll help you through.
We can’t force people to give them support. What do you want? For me to knock on the door?
We had sessions [extends arms to suggest a large session].
LB: You’ve just extended your arms to show me a large session. That’s not one-to-one support.
CA: No, no, a large session with one-to-one support. Okay. We had 10 officers. 10 officers, and they were meeting family to family. One-to-one support.
We didn’t do a public meeting because what does that show? It shows what? Everybody’s in a different situation. You are tenants and you are owner occupiers, you are private tenants, you are landlords. Will be the one who shouts the loudest who will be heard.
So you need to have that one-to-one support. And we have extended that offer all the way through. It’s still rare for people to want it. But we can’t force people to do it.
LB: Okay, one man came to me (after the news) because he’s accepted an offer but is now months down the line between accepting and hearing anything from Aberdeen City Council. He can’t move, he can’t find something else, because until you’ve got the keys, he doesn’t have the money. That’s not one-to-one support.
CA: I can’t comment about an individual case. But if you give me the name, I’ll look into it.
Does the council understand homeowners’ feelings?
LB: It could be perception, or it could be reality that how this has been handled from your perspective is support, but from their perspective, they’ve been treated like a number on a list and it’s just administrative. Do you understand that they may not feel supported?
CA: I understand, and I understand as well that as a much as I think our team are fantastic doing what they do, that’s stretched them to the limits. Our level of support has maybe not been as good between one, and another one. I can understand that.
LB: In that same interview, you described the handling of Raac as a success. Many of the homeowners feel like it’s been more of a disaster. Do you understand why they feel like that?
CA: I want to make it very clear when I talked about success, I was talking about the relocation of our tenants.
LB: Okay… So you feel the handling of the council tenants has been a great success in terms of the enormity of it, and the mechanism put in place?
CA: And the work put through. Now, it’s not a success for tenants. Nobody wanted to be relocated, maybe a few did, but on the whole nobody wanted to be relocated. Nobody wanted to be in that situation. So that is not a success.
What I’m talking about is the operation put in place and our officers doing a fantastic job to deal with this.
It’s so difficult. You have to deal one-to-one, with each person. It breaks your heart to hear the stories. You will have experienced similar as a journalist. It’s a very difficult task.
LB: How many of your constituents do you think you’ve met with one-to-one?
CA: I don’t meet one-to-one.
LB: You don’t meet anyone one-to-one?
CA: Because it’s silly. You know, it’s officers to do that. I’m an elected member. They contact me and I respond to them. I meet them in public meetings.
LB: I understand that in normal terms. Do you not think this is an exceptional thing? I mean, you told me where you live in Torry, it’s just yards away from the people in North Balnagask Road? Is this not a situation that calls for you to meet with your constituents?
CA: I think it would be unrealistic for me to knock on doors of tenants or owner occupiers… to tell them what?
You know, it’s officers who do the work.
If they want to contact me and they do, I respond to them.
They’ve got their groups – which are a very important – they meet regularly.
But I’m not here to do either the job of our fantastic team, or to do the fantastic job that groups organised by themselves are doing.
This is not my role, you know. People are all welcome to contact me at any time.
LB: I would have thought it would have been a good opportunity for you to meet with these people and say, listen, you know, maybe I can’t do anything…
CA: In which context do I meet them? I’m not going to knock on doors and disturb people, if that’s one thing.
What I can do and what I’ve done since the start is to go to every meeting that I can go to.
Where people can call me names, by all means. Because I have felt their frustration, I felt the anger, and we are right to be frustrated and to be angry.
But I don’t know, are you asking me to actually go and knock at the doors of people?
LB: I’m not here to tell you that you should be doing anything.
Regarding recent visit of the Scottish Housing Minister
LB: During the recent visit from the Housing Minister it was said that the Scottish Government has received no detailed proposals from ACC. What’s your response?
CA: [Mr Allard points to an email from March 2024 addressed to then First Minister Humza Yousaf.]
LB: This is sent to Humza, and on March 2024…
CA: That’s the answer. [Points to email]
LB: But to address this point, in March 2024, a decision had not been made about whether the houses were going to be demolished.
CA:[Nods].
LB: Right, so when the council went to the Scottish government then, what were you asking for because it couldn’t have been to fairly compensate the homeowners?
CA: The same thing that I asked a local government minister, when he first came at the end of 2023.
I took him through the houses in Torry and I said we need greater flexibility or any kind of funding, for local authority, tenants, and our owner occupiers.
LB: Okay, so nothing specific was asked for?
CA: What specific do you want me to ask?
LB: I’m trying to weigh up Paul McLennan saying nothing detailed has been sent with your claim that you have sent details.
CA: It’s not a claim I’m telling you! [Points to dossier of emails]
LB: I haven’t read them yet, so let me have a look.
[LB reads emails]
LB: Is that the only correspondence you’ve had?
CA: We had many meetings and many correspondences. I have asked and had many, many meetings. We had meetings last Friday [with Paul McLennan].
LB: Yes, of course.
CA: Which we asked the same thing again. Can we have funding? Please, we need access to funding now.
LB: So I believe you have asked verbally and through letters. But have you sent a detailed proposal to the Scottish Government to say: this is what we’ve currently got earmarked. This is what it will cost to do what the homeowners are asking for. Therefore, we’ve got a deficit of however many millions?
CA: Response from two Governments so far is there is no Raac funding.
LB: But have you sent detailed financials yet?
CA: Do you know how much it’s going to cost me for the owner occupiers? No, because I said we do a one-to-one.
LB: Yeah but there’s a ballpark figure though…
CA: We’ve got two obstacles.
First obstacle, there’s no Raac funding anyway. Obstacle number one.
Obstacle number two, I can tell you how much we have spent so far. I can’t tell you on how much I’m going to spend. Because as you said, some of the owner occupiers have not interacted yet.
LB: But you can look at 138 properties, you can say, this is how many flats, and this is what they were worth before Raac.This is what the houses were worth before Raac. Disturbance costs on top of that…You could come up with a figure. I could come up with that figure right now for you.
[Long pause]
CA: We’ve given details of where we are all the time. All approximate figures. Of course we did, because we have to.
LB: Was MSP Paul McLennan truthful when he discussed detailed proposals?
CA: I was not there. I was not invited to the meeting. So I can’t comment on what Paul said.
LB: Well, I can tell you what he said. It was recorded, and he said: “We have received no detailed proposals from Aberdeen.” That [email] isn’t a detailed proposal, Christian. That’s a letter.
CA: But what do you mean no detailed proposal? How can I give a detailed proposal for something I’ve not secured?
LB: But you can give a much more broad and detailed…
CA: We did. We did broad figures, approximate figures, of how much it will cost.
LB: So where are those documents?
CA: They would be exchanged between our officials.
LB: Am I able to get the names of those officials so I can ask to see them?
CA: I can check it. I can check if you want.
LB: Yes. I would like to.
Is demolition a done deal?
LB: Demolition was decided last summer. Since then homeowners have been meeting with officials. But I’ve heard you’re opposed to suggested other options?
CA: Who me?
LB: Yeah.
CA: Me?
LB: Yeah.
CA: How would we know this?
LB: They’ve been told this.
CA: By whom?
LB: They’ve been told, and I have spoken to some other councillors off the record as well.
CA: But why on earth would somebody say that?
It’s got nothing to do with them, whatever I think, or don’t think. If somebody wants to know what I think, they should ask me, like you are doing today.
LB: Okay, so if the Torry Community Raac Campaign, on behalf of the other homeowners, come up with other suggestions that will cost the same or less, that the homeowners will consider to be much fairer and much, much better. Would you consider that?
CA: First of all, I’ve not seen the papers yet. I don’t know how it will end up. So I don’t know what officers recommend.
LB: But you would be open to other suggestions if they come in best value?
CA: I’ll follow officers’ recommendations as much as I can, if I disagree with officers, I’ll disagree with officers, but I can’t answer until I know exactly what the recommendation is of the officers.
LB: So you’re not categorically just going to block it?
CA: Why would I do that? Imagine if this is the recommendation of the officers, and I will block them. Why would I do that?
Now, if officers’ recommendation is no, then I’ll have to look at it and make my mind up, and it’s not me only. It’s not only the SNP and Liberal Democratic parties…
LB: Are you personally open to there being another way here, without demolishing all the houses?
CA: If I was not open to, I don’t think we would have decided, as a council, as a local authority, to look at it.
LB: Let me be a little bit cheeky. Previously, councillors have called you a little bit stubborn and unshakeable with things like the bus gates.
CA: What?
LB: Wait a minute, wait, I’m not talking about the bus gates again.
CA: I’ve changed at least three times on bus gates, gone to two round tables. If I could have avoided all that and did what you just said I would have done it.
On the contrary, I kept on speaking about it and I kept on changing.
LB: So is there a possibility that you personally, and your council, could change their minds, so some of these houses may not need to be demolished?
CA: We have not made up our mind up yet, as you know, and when the group went to us and said that they wanted us to have an open mind we said, yes, bring the proposals to us, we’ll look at them, and we’ll take them to committee and decide.
One thing can’t be done, and it would be very strict on that.
I don’t want people to live in these houses, a day more than they are living in them.
You know, for all that pressure, whether it’s financial, mental life, or physical health. In terms of physical health – something can happen, it’s very high risk.
And I will not give people false hope. I can’t make promises.
LB: So you’re not the immovable object when it comes to this thing? [LB laughs]
CA: I never have been.
LB: Do you believe you or ACC has done enough for the homeowners?
CA: No, it’s never enough because it’s through no fault of your own. It’s no fault of your own. And to be truthful, I know why the petition was created.
They put on it for a Raac UK fund to be created, and they put on it about a public inquiry. And I didn’t sign it at the time because a public inquiry is for 10 or 20 years time. We need to have help now, we don’t need help in 10 or 20 years time.
Never mind this. Public enquiries can be an absolute nightmare. You know, they compensate people when we’re dead, you’ve seen what happened with the Post Office, you know. It’s just a scandal.
So I signed it when you took over the campaign, because I thought, okay, if it’s validated by the Press and Journal and by the other Raac group, I was happy to sign it, of course, because as you can see, it’s the same.
I asked for the same thing from day one.
We need to unlock that funding. That will be the best solution.
LB: Will unlocking that funding, like cladding funding, ultimately give the owner occupiers what they want?
CA: I don’t know. I don’t know what the limitation will be, you know. There will be limitations on cladding as well. There are limitations on everything.
Will it give us a lot more flexibility to our programme financially? Yes.
About the council’s obligations to homeowners in ex-council housing
LB: Do you think Aberdeen City Council has a responsibility to homeowners?
CA: No. Legally, no.
But that doesn’t mean we haven’t got a moral obligation. As I said, earlier on, you know, anybody in the city in financial difficulty can come to Aberdeen City Council and they’ll get support.
LB: Another name for Raac is Siporex. Siporex is in all the Aberdeen City Council plans. It’s not a secret that there’s Siporex. In 2002, houses were condemned in Livingston because they were made of Siporex. Was anything done at that point in 2002, when a fellow local authority was having its houses condemned and faced a battle with homeowners?And what will happen if Westminster don’t come to the table?
Listen to Mr Allard’s response here:
LB: Thank you for coming in and giving me so much time today.
- This formed a 105-minute interview. Questions and answers have been distilled for this article.
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