A Dundee resident is suing the city council over the £4.4 million roofing blunder that left him clearing up flood damage in his home.
Joe Hughes, 65, is one of hundreds of Dundee householders whose roofs fell short of safety standards because of a “gross error” by the local authority.
He has now decided to launch legal action against the council for emergency repairs he had to carry out to his Clepington Road home as well as for legal fees.
Resident: “Council incompetence to blame”
Joe said: “I’m suing the council for the expenses I incurred as well as for the legal fees I have racked up during this situation.
“It was council incompetence that caused all this in the first place so I am dealing with solicitors to get my money back.”
He added: “This action was started back in March but we are still waiting for a response from the council.”
Joe said that the repairs to his block of flats were carried out over a six week period in the summer time.
He added: “I am still looking for answers from the council but they won’t reply to my emails.”
One year on
The roofing issue was first revealed by The Courier in November last year.
Papers confirmed that roof installations carried out by the council between 2015 and 2019 were not carried out to the required safety standard.
A report to the council’s policy and resources committee last November by the council’s executive director of city development, Robin Presswood, and executive director of neighbourhood services, Elaine Zwirlein, explained the full extent of the problem.
The situation affected 450 houses that had new roofs installed.
As Joe is not a council tenant he had to pay for initial repairs to his top floor flat in Clepington Road himself.
The report stated: “The purpose of this report is to inform committee on a review of working practices on roofs installed by Construction Services (CS) and inspected by the Council Clerk of Works (CoW) in the period 2015 to 2019.”
The problem surrounds a change in British Safety Standard regulations in 2015 that the council failed to pick up until late 2019.
It added up to a £4.4m cost to the council to carry out repair work.
At the time Dundee councillors of all parties agreed at a meeting of the city council’s policy and resources committee that an independent inquiry must be carried out after hundreds of homes fell beneath legal standards.
Dundee City Council did not respond to a question about the legal action.
Repair work progress
The council have now completed repairs to four of the six sites affected.
These are:
- Clepington Road
- Court Street
- Two phases in St Marys.
Work is currently underway at
- Hospital Park
- Clement Park
The Dundee City Council spokesman added: “Construction services are currently working through a roof remediation programme which started in July 2022.
“So far work has been completed on four schemes with a further two currently on site.”
