TENEMENT owners struggling with costly communal repairs should be offered incentives, according to a petition which has been backed by MSPs.

The petition claims financial support would help preserve the country's historic housing. Holyrood's Petitions Committee will now write to the Scottish and UK Governments and the Royal Incorporations of Architects of Scotland for their views.

The move follows a plea by Florance Kennedy, whose Edinburgh tenement block requires £240,000 of repairs. The bill includes £40,000 of VAT – which Ms Kennedy said should be cut by the UK Government for communal repairs. She called on the Scottish Government to consider separate incentives.

In a submission to the committee, she said crumbling tenements and the difficulty of fixing them was a "particularly Scottish problem". She said: "I hope this petition will raise support for action to be taken, although any success is likely to be far too late for our own project, now under way at a cost of £200,000 plus VAT."

A study two years ago revealed a £1.4 billion tenement repairs backlog in Edinburgh alone.

Edinburgh Labour MP Mark Lazarowicz and SNP MSP Marco Biagi both voiced support for VAT cuts to encourage communal repairs following the report.

Renfrewshire Council this week announced it was setting up a taskforce to tackle privately owned properties in Paisley that have fallen into disrepair.

Councillors have threatened to take enforcement action and bill owners for repairs after warning the town's architectural heritage was at risk.