Councils seeing rising number of damp and mould cases, MSPs told

Councils across Scotland are reporting rising levels of mould and damp cases in social homes.

Officials from several local authorities have suggested the rise is due to increased media reporting and public awareness of the issue.

Appearing before Holyrood’s Housing Committee on Tuesday, Susie Fitton, a policy manager at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, said tenants now have a better understanding of damp and mould.

She said housing providers have responded to this with increased action.

Murray Sharp, a housing official at Clackmannanshire Council, said damp and mould cases had surged from around 2% of its housing stock each year before the pandemic to around 5% now.

“In some ways, as my colleagues have indicated, that can be a good story as well, because the worst thing can happen sometimes with damp and mould is the underreporting, or when people just leave it and it festers and gets worse,” he told MSPs.

Craig Dugdale, a surveying manager at the City of Edinburgh Council, said recent media reporting is “pushing tenants to come in and report” mould and damp.

He said the council had conducted around 1,600 surveys for damp, mould and condensation in the capital from April last year to February this year – an increase of around 600 from the year before.

“That’s probably purely because of the team that has been brought in because now we’ve got the capacity to deal with it,” he said, as well as tenants being more encouraged to report issues.

In Dundee, around £1.8 million was spent over the last year to tackle the issue, which accounts for 3.1% of social housing reports and more than 7% of its repairs budget, according to the head of housing at the council, Louise Butchart.

Euan McCallum, acting housing assets manager at Angus Council, said like other local authorities, his area had seen a “marked increase” in reports of damp and mould, which accounted for around 5% of its 7,800 social homes in the last year.

He told the committee: “As others have said, that’s based on increased knowledge amongst people of the prevalence of the issue and also us making tenants aware of that as well.”

It comes as new measures are being introduced to make it easier for social housing tenants to have damp and mould fixed in their homes.

Awaab’s Law, named after two-year-old Awaab Ishak who died after direct exposure to mould in a social home in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, in 2020, will become part of the Housing (Scotland) Bill through amendments from the Government at stage two.

If passed as part of the final Bill, timeframes will be placed on social landlords to investigate issues and carry out repairs.

The Government has also said it will look at how to implement the changes in the private rental sector as well.