Things are looking a little bit different in Milton of Leys these days.
The number of houses in the development has been steadily growing for two decades now.
There’s a lot of green space and plenty of parks for kids to play in, so it was never really a mystery why houses were always snapped up so quickly whenever they hit the market.
Lately though, those green spaces have been on the slide.
Here, we investigate a factoring row that is affecting the appearance of the area.
How did we get here?
Badly maintained grass and public space is not anything new for most areas.
They’re a symptom of huge public service cutbacks.
The degradation of Milton of Leys has been a far more recent phenomenon, however.
That’s because it had a residential factor that looked after the local area.
In short, everyone that lives on the estate chips in money and a private company handles the maintenance.
But the quality of that service has been a hotly-disputed topic locally for a long time.
Tulloch Homes built a lot of the houses in the area and has been responsible for hiring the factors.
A company called Greenbelt held the reins for years.
They had their detractors and some residents refused to stump up because they didn’t think they were doing the job properly.
There was a fresh start when Greenbelt was replaced by James Gibb Residential Factors.
But the same complaints emerged and it all came to a head in April 2024.
That’s when James Gibb announced it was withdrawing its service with immediate effect because so many local residents weren’t paying.
Milton of Leys growing out of control
It wasn’t entirely out of the blue.
There were letters warning of potential court action and home-owners were being slapped with notices of potential liability if they tried to sell their property without settling their maintenance bills.
From James Gibb’s point-of-view, those were the only avenues it had to recover the money it was due.
When the company eventually pulled the plug, it was said to be owed nearly £200,000 from 500 different home-owners.
What happened next was no surprise: the grass grew. And grew.
By the end of the summer, the previously pretty suburb looked like it had been chosen for an urban rewilding experiment.
‘I would love nothing more than for this to no longer be an issue’
Because Milton of Leys is split up into a number of different phases, properties across the estate have title deeds which say different things about maintenance.
Earlier this year, Registers of Scotland added notes to the deeds of some of these properties declaring that certain conditions about maintenance were invalid.
Tulloch Homes, which built a lot of the estate, does not accept Registers of Scotland’s approach and believes any dispute over the deeds is “a matter for the courts”.
Add all that to the general dissatisfaction with the level of service over a period of years and it soon becomes clear how we ended up here.
Allan Hunter has been living in Milton of Leys since 2006 and been raising concerns about the quality of the maintenance for years.
He’s far from alone in that regard.
Allan is now the reluctant chairman of the Milton of Leys Residents Association.
“My argument was never that we shouldn’t have to pay for a factor,” he said.
“I knew we would have to. My argument was that we shouldn’t be paying for nothing.
“I would love nothing more than for this to no longer be an issue. But here we still are.”
Locals gathered at Milton of Leys Primary School at the end of last year for a meeting to discuss the situation.
There was plenty of anger about how things are now looking – particularly from residents who kept paying their maintenance bills throughout – but hammering out a consensus among the thousands who live there is proving tricky.
What have the factors said about the disagreement?
James Gibb disputes claims that the service was not up to scratch.
They believe social media had a part to play in encouraging people not to pay their maintenance fees.
David Reid, who was James Gibb’s chief executive at the time the company withdrew from Milton of Leys, said: “A substantial amount of people were paying and were happy with the service.
“I am adamant that the level of service was never really under question. It was more to do with this group of people online.”
Tom McKie is the managing director of Speirs Gumley and looks after James Gibb’s interests in the north of Scotland.
He said: “If the home-owners don’t reach a consensus, the area around their homes is going to reach a condition that none of them are going to like.
“And it will have a severe impact on the value of their own home.
“We are still definitely open to helping the home-owners resolve this.”
So… what happens now?
The longer the estate goes without maintenance, the more serious the problems could become.
There are fears of an increase in the number of ticks in the area and rats roaming in the long grass.
Local councillor Ken Gowans said: “There doesn’t seem to be an end to this in sight. “We need to get heads around a table and see how we can resolve this.
“The current situation is unacceptable.”
Tulloch Homes says it will be unlikely to find a new factor willing to take on the contract without new title conditions being put in place.
It suggested a “community-led” approach to handling the maintenance. Its offer, however, was roundly rejected by Milton of Leys residents at a recent meeting.
Kieran Graham, managing Director at Tulloch Homes, said: “The deterioration of areas of open space at Milton of Leys over the summer has underlined the benefits of having a factor in place.
“We await further clarification as to any alternative approach [residents] may wish to explore.”
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