The Highland Council is able to assist with improvements to privately owned houses by award of improvement grants through the Care and Repair scheme. This approach enables us to assist in the improvement of around 850 houses each year.
An example of recent improvement works achieved with such a grant, together with other funding, is a small cottage in Portmahomack where Mr William Doull and Mrs Eileen Doull have lived for 36 years. The house had badly deteriorated and required total modernisation.
Originally from the Orkney Island of Hoy, Mr Doull worked at the fabrication plant in Nigg whilst Mrs Doull, who latterly worked as a home help, hails from Northampton.
Having lived in Portmahomack for such a long time, Mr and Mrs Doull wished to remain in the area, but there were no suitable alternative housing options in the village. Mr & Mrs Doull first contacted Care and Repair in 2005 to help them apply to the Highland Council for a grant to re-wire the house.
However, the house needed to be completely modernised and needed a new roof, a new front door, a new kitchen, a specially adapted bathroom and redecoration.
Care and Repair helped the Doulls find somewhere else to live during the renovation – which lasted 4 months.
The £20,000 maximum grant from the Highland Council was not enough to cover the cost of the work to Mr and Mrs Doull’s home so the Council funded Albyn Housing Society enabling them to take a share in the equity of the house to provide the remaining balance.
Through the hard work and the goodwill of the people involved, Mr and Mrs Doull now live in comfort in the home in which they raised their two daughters and became very much part of the community.