HELENSBURGH is to play host to Scotland’s first forum for owners of the country’s listed properties this weekend.

The town’s MP, Brendan O’Hara, will host the Listed Property Owners’ Club (LPOC) event at Helensburgh Parish Church on Saturday, March 17 from 10am until 2pm.

The forum has been organised in the hope of drawing attention to issues surrounding the cost of maintaining buildings of regional and sometimes national importance.

By law, owners of listed buildings must ensure that all building or maintenance works carried out on their property conforms to the standards demanded by their local Conservation Officer.

Due to the nature of listed buildings this often means that owners incur greatly increased costs that would not apply to non-listed homes.

Owners are also automatically liable for any unauthorised work carried out by previous owners, and can even be prosecuted if they fall foul of complex planning laws.

While such rules are in place to protect the properties themselves, little or no consideration is given to the financial means of owners, who often cannot afford the extra expense; a situation that was worsened by the scrapping of zero rated VAT on approved alterations in 2012.

Peter Anslow, founder of the Listed Property Owners’ Club, said: “After years of decisions going against them, listed property owners feel increasingly unsupported in looking after their buildings.

“This event will give owners the opportunity to tell their local MP about the challenges they face and how the loss of zero VAT has affected them.”

Mr O’Hara, who is one of 52 MPs on the all-party parliamentary group on listed buildings at Westminster, added: “I am interested to hear my constituents’ views on how parliament can better serve the needs of listed property owners through actions such as simplifying the planning process and reducing the VAT rate for work on listed buildings to 5 per cent.

The Listed Property Owners’ Club is the UK’s only membership organisation for owners or prospective owners of listed buildings and is a regular campaigning force for changes to VAT and planning rules.

Next weekend’s event will also give listed building owners advice from experts on topics such as what to look for when buying a listed building, listed building consent, insurance and more.

All owners of listed buildings and anyone who is considering purchasing are welcome and can drop in at any time during the day.

Visitors are asked to confirm their attendance by emailing their name and contact details to events@lpoc.scot.

The Helensburgh forum is one of several planned for venues across the UK this year and will act as a launch event for the LPOC’s 2018 programme.