Traditional building skills brought to Scottish Parliament

On the 18th March, in the Garden Lobby of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, a number of demonstrations took place to show off traditional building skills and materials. The evening event featured roofing skills demos which were undertaken by Lewis Miller of Compass Roofing Ltd, with slates kindly supplied by SIG Roofing, both companies are members of the National Federation of Roofing Contractors.

The event was sponsored by Nigel Don MSP (Convenor of Cross Party Group in the Scottish Parliament on Construction) and attended by Fiona Hyslop MSP (Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs), Paul Wheelhouse MSP (Minister for Environment and Climate Change) and a further 16 MSPs. All MSPs visited the roofing stand and spent a considerable time talking to Lewis about the skills and materials for traditional roofing slating in Scotland.

One of the guests at the event was Scott Miller, Managing Director of Compass Roofing Ltd and Lewis’ father, commented, “After attending the event and having spoken to other attendees, I was surprised by the amount of input from Government Ministers taking the time to actually get to know our thoughts on the issues regarding training and skills ongoing in our industry and how they were trying to improve things.”

The next major event on the calendar is Scottish Apprenticeship Week, taking place on the 19th-23rd May. NFRC will once again be involved with live demonstrations undertaken by roofing apprentices; on the 19th-20th May will be a roof slating at St Andrews Square Gardens, and on the 23rd May at the Old Parish Church in Falkirk will be lead roofing. It is hoped that the demos will attract a high level of interest and support from MSPs and visitors, as it did in 2013.