Ministers' offices soaked by new spate of Holyrood leaks

Published on Wednesday 4 November 2009 08:54

SOME of Alex Salmond's senior ministers have become the latest victims of leaking roofs at the Scottish Parliament.

Finance secretary John Swinney had to get the buckets out to catch the drips after a blocked downpipe led to a leak in his fourth-floor office in the ministerial tower at Holyrood.

And the leak caused the ceiling to collapse in the nearby office of housing minister Alex Neil, who was left with a blue tarpaulin to catch the debris.

Others whose rooms were affected included transport minister Stewart Stevenson and public health minister Shona Robison.

However, the First Minister's office escaped undamaged.

The problem occurred during the recess when some of the politicians were away.

One source said: "It was found by officials one morning.

"Alex Neil's office was the worst affected. The ceiling had come down, there were a lot of papers which got wet and they had to re-do the whole ceiling and paint it."

The source said water had also leaked from the ceiling in a nearby area where officials sit. "It was coming in there – and then at Stewart Stevenson's room they had one of these gigantic bins which I thought was for waste paper, but it turned out to be full of water.

"Stewart's office was slightly damaged, as was Shona Robison's."

A parliament spokesman confirmed there had been a leak of water in the ministerial tower during the recess.

He said: "The problem was caused by a blocked downpipe, which led to water backing up and finding its way into the building. We had to replace a small section of plasterboard in a ceiling, but there was no other damage.

"Some furniture got a bit wet as a result of the leak, but it was clean water."

The spokesman said work had now been carried out to rectify the problem.

"The blockage in the downpipe has been fixed. We keep our maintenance programme under regular review."

Earlier this year, it was revealed the Scottish Parliament was spending almost 100,000 plugging leaks in various parts of the building.

Buckets have frequently been needed to catch the drips in the black and white corridor outside the debating chamber.

In January 2007, a spell of bad weather led to a spate of leaks in MSPs' "think pod" windows.

In April last year, contractors spent ten days trying to fix the problem.

And this September, workmen were called in to repair leaks in five separate "think pod" windows on three floors of the MSP block.