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New information obtained by a Tillicoultry RAAC homeowner reveals that Clackmannanshire Council had secured £817,333 through the Scottish Government’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme for remediation of Council-owned properties — while homeowners were waiting for answers about financial assistance and being encouraged to consider selling their homes.
Fresh questions have emerged over the handling of RAAC-affected homeowners in Tillicoultry after a Freedom of Information request revealed that £817,333 in Scottish Government funding had been approved for remediation works involving Council-owned properties.
The information was obtained by RAAC homeowner and campaign group member Owain Carter, who submitted an Environmental Information request to the Scottish Government on 20 June 2026.
The Scottish Government's response, dated 9 July 2026, confirms that funding of £817,333 had been approved through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme for:
- 35–51 High Street, Tillicoultry
- 6–22 Park Street, Tillicoultry
- 75–97 Chappelle Crescent, Tillicoultry
The funding is described by the Scottish Government as being for “Voids Remediation Works for Council owner properties” and will be paid when works are completed in each of the three blocks, with expenditure expected across the 2026/27 and 2027/28 financial years.
The Scottish Government also confirmed that:
“No other grant application have been submitted to the Scottish Government.”
The disclosure is significant because of what homeowners say they were being told during the period in which the funding was being secured and discussions about their own financial position were taking place.
This was not a homeowner compensation grant
It is important to be precise about the nature of the funding.
The £817,333 was not a grant for RAAC-affected homeowners.
It was not a fund established to compensate private homeowners, nor does the Scottish Government's response state that the money could be used to increase individual purchase offers.
The funding was approved through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme for remediation of Council-owned properties.
The UK RAAC Campaign Group is therefore not suggesting that £817,333 should simply have been divided between homeowners.
The significance of the funding lies elsewhere.
It raises questions about what the Council knew, when it knew it, what financial discussions were taking place and what information was communicated to homeowners while they were being asked to make major decisions about their properties.
The Council had been discussing financial assistance with homeowners
The timing is particularly important.
Following a meeting in October 2025 involving RAAC-affected homeowners, Council officers and councillors, and the Scottish Government represented by the then Housing Minister Mairi McAllan, homeowners understood that the Council would explore providing a fixed payment from its own resources.
This was separate from Scottish Government grant funding.
The proposal was understood to involve the Council potentially setting aside money from its own budgets to provide a payment to affected homeowners.
The reasoning was that the financial circumstances surrounding the remediation of Council-owned properties could potentially allow the Council to make a separate contribution towards homeowners who had suffered significant losses as a consequence of RAAC.
This was therefore not a request for the Scottish Government to provide another grant.
It was a proposal for the Council itself to consider using its own funds.
A payment of £10,000–£15,000 was discussed
The possibility of a fixed payment was not merely theoretical.
During a subsequent telephone conversation with Kevin Wells, Director for Place & Economy, Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the UK RAAC Campaign Group, says that a potential figure of approximately £10,000 to £15,000 per homeowner was discussed.
The figure was understood to be a potential Council-funded payment.
It was not presented as Scottish Government funding.
Homeowners were therefore given reason to believe that the Council was actively considering whether it could provide a meaningful financial contribution towards their losses.
They were subsequently asked to wait while this was explored.
For homeowners already facing mortgages, insurance and other continuing costs on RAAC-affected properties, that waiting period was not cost-free.
The Aberdeen comparison
The discussions also arose in the context of arrangements being considered elsewhere.
Aberdeen City Council had obtained funding relating to remediation of Council-owned properties affected by RAAC and had considered its own financial arrangements for affected homeowners.
The comparison was relevant because it demonstrated that a local authority could potentially consider a separate Council-funded payment to homeowners, rather than treating Scottish Government remediation funding itself as homeowner compensation.
The issue for Tillicoultry homeowners was therefore whether Clackmannanshire Council could similarly identify its own resources to recognise some of the financial losses experienced by affected residents.
Homeowners were encouraged to consider selling
During this period, Wilson Chowdhry also had discussions with Council officers regarding the position of affected homeowners.
In a conversation with Kim Grieve, Mr Chowdhry says he was advised that homeowners might be better off selling their properties to the Council in order to bring their continuing financial liabilities to an end.
For homeowners paying mortgages, insurance and other costs on properties affected by RAAC, the suggestion was understandable in one respect.
Selling would bring those ongoing costs to an end.
But the context is important.
At the same time, homeowners understood that the Council was considering a fixed payment potentially worth £10,000–£15,000.
They therefore had to make decisions about whether to accept existing offers or wait for the outcome of the Council's discussions.
When did the Council know about the £817,333?
This is now one of the central questions.
Information available to the UK RAAC Campaign Group indicates that the Council had knowledge of the Scottish Government funding from around March 2026.
From March onwards, Mr Chowdhry says he made repeated calls and sent numerous emails seeking information about the Council's discussions with the Scottish Government, available funding and the possibility of further financial assistance.
Yet he says that the existence of the £817,333 funding was not disclosed to him during those enquiries before June.
The Scottish Government response to Mr Carter's request now confirms that the funding had been approved.
This creates a straightforward question:
If the Council knew about the funding, why was that information not disclosed when homeowners and their campaign representatives were repeatedly seeking an update on the financial position?
There may be a legitimate explanation.
The funding may have been subject to conditions.
It may have been restricted entirely to the remediation of Council-owned properties.
It may have had no relevance to individual homeowner purchase offers.
But homeowners should not have to speculate about these matters.
They should be told.
The Council's own proposed payment is a separate issue
It is important not to conflate the two sources of funding.
The Scottish Government's £817,333 was for remediation works involving Council-owned properties.
The proposed £10,000–£15,000 fixed payment was understood to be something different: a potential payment from Clackmannanshire Council's own resources.
The Council therefore cannot simply answer questions about the proposed fixed payment by pointing to the restrictions attached to the Scottish Government grant.
The questions are separate.
Homeowners want to know whether the Council explored using its own resources to provide a fixed payment, as they had been led to believe.
They want to know what its finance team concluded.
And they want to know why the Council ultimately moved from considering a potential payment of £10,000–£15,000 to telling homeowners that no additional financial assistance was available.
What happened to the proposed fixed payment?
The Council's position became particularly difficult for homeowners to understand when letters dated 23 July 2026 stated that, following a “thorough review and exploration of all available funding options”, the Council was unable to provide any additional financial assistance towards the purchase of their properties.
That raises several questions.
Was the proposed fixed payment formally considered?
Was the Council's finance team asked to identify money that could be used for it?
Was a sum actually identified?
Was the £10,000–£15,000 figure ever considered formally by councillors or Council officers?
If the proposal was rejected, when was that decision made?
What was the reason?
And why were homeowners asked to wait while this was being explored?
These questions matter because homeowners continued to incur significant costs while they waited.
The financial burden of waiting
The Council's approach needs to be considered from the perspective of the families affected.
Homeowners did not choose to have RAAC in their properties.
They did not choose to see the value and usability of their homes affected.
They did not choose to spend years uncertain about whether their homes would be remediated, purchased or otherwise dealt with.
Many have continued to face mortgage payments, insurance and other costs.
The instruction to “wait” therefore had a financial consequence.
If homeowners were asked to wait because the Council genuinely believed additional financial assistance might become available, they deserve to know what happened to that possibility.
If no payment was ever realistically available, they deserve to know why they were not told sooner.
The changing property offers add to the concern
The funding issue is also occurring against the background of significant changes to the offers being made for some homeowners' properties.
Recent correspondence has reportedly resulted in figures that differ substantially from previous offers.
One homeowner has reportedly received an offer more than £13,500 higher than their original offer, while another has received an offer £5,000 lower.
These differences raise separate questions about the valuation process.
But they also reinforce the need for transparency.
Homeowners need to know exactly how purchase offers have been calculated and what financial assumptions underpin them.
They should not be left trying to understand whether changes are connected to revised valuations, remediation costs, funding arrangements or other factors.
The information should be disclosed openly
The Scottish Government's response provides a clear factual starting point.
£817,333 was approved.
It was approved through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme.
It relates to remediation of three blocks of Council-owned properties in Tillicoultry.
It is expected to be paid as works are completed during 2026/27 and 2027/28.
The campaign is not suggesting anything beyond those facts.
What homeowners are asking is what happened on the Council side.
When did Clackmannanshire Council know?
What internal discussions took place?
Was the funding considered alongside the Council's own proposal for a fixed payment?
What did the finance team advise?
And why did the Council ultimately conclude that no additional financial assistance could be provided?
Wilson Chowdhry: “The Council needs to explain the chronology”
Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the UK RAAC Campaign Group, said:
“The information obtained by Owain Carter is important because it establishes that £817,333 had been approved through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme for remediation of Council-owned properties in three Tillicoultry blocks.
“I want to be absolutely clear that we are not claiming this was a compensation grant for homeowners. It wasn't. The Scottish Government has clearly stated what the funding was for.
“Our concern is about the wider financial circumstances and the information homeowners were receiving while they were being asked to make decisions about their properties.
“Following the October meeting involving homeowners, the Council and the then Housing Minister Mairi McAllan, homeowners understood that the Council would explore using its own resources to provide a fixed payment. In a subsequent conversation, Kevin Wells indicated to me that a figure in the region of £10,000 to £15,000 was being considered.
“This was not additional Scottish Government grant funding. It was understood to be something the Council could potentially provide from its own resources, potentially by setting aside money from other Council budgets as a consequence of the wider remediation arrangements.
“Homeowners were asked to wait while this was explored. During that period I repeatedly contacted the Council seeking information about funding and the position of homeowners.
“At the same time, homeowners were being advised that they might be better off selling to bring their ongoing costs to an end.
“We now know that £817,333 had been approved for Council-owned property remediation. That does not mean that this money should have been paid to homeowners. But it does mean that homeowners are entitled to understand the Council's financial position and what discussions were taking place around its own proposed fixed payment.
“If the Council ultimately decided that it could not provide that payment, then homeowners deserve to know when that decision was made, why it was made and what financial options were considered.
“We are not making an allegation that the Council deliberately withheld funding to acquire properties cheaply. We do not have evidence to make that allegation. We are asking for transparency because the chronology raises legitimate questions.
“These homeowners have already waited years and carried substantial financial and emotional costs. They deserve to know whether the commitments and possibilities discussed with them were genuinely explored and, if so, why they ultimately came to nothing.”
Homeowners deserve the full picture
The disclosure of the £817,333 funding does not answer every question surrounding the Tillicoultry RAAC crisis.
But it does provide an important piece of information that homeowners did not previously have.
It confirms that substantial Scottish Government funding was approved for remediation of Council-owned properties while affected private homeowners were themselves waiting for clarity about their future.
It also highlights the need to distinguish between Scottish Government funding for Council-owned property remediation and the separate Council-funded payment that homeowners understood was being considered.
The key issue is therefore not whether homeowners should receive a share of the £817,333.
It is whether they were given a full and accurate picture of the financial circumstances surrounding their properties while they were being asked to wait, consider selling and absorb the continuing costs of the RAAC crisis.
The Council should now provide that explanation openly.
For families who have already spent years living with uncertainty, transparency is not an unreasonable demand. It is the minimum they deserve.
Together, we continue to stand with RAAC families and campaign for a fair resolution.
The RAAC crisis is not just about concrete—it is about accountability.
And we are far from finished.
📧 Email: wilson@aasecurity.co.uk
📢 Twitter/X: https://x.com/WilsonChowdhry
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