Skripal house for sale – ghouls need not apply

Wiltshire council is selling the ex-russian spy’s home but will ensure it cannot be made into an attraction

‘Someone might try and perhaps use the awful events that took place as a way to gain some kind of status’

THE house in Salisbury where Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned is to be sold by the local council under shared ownership to ensure future owners do not attempt to turn it into a macabre tourist attraction.

The four-bed house on Christie Miller Road is for sale but only local residents will be allowed to purchase it, and Wiltshire council will retain at least a 25 per cent share.

Phil Alford, the council’s cabinet member for housing, told The Daily Telegraph that it was to ensure the new owners did not use the property’s history to “gain some kind of status”.

“[It means] we can have some say over what happens or who lives in there afterwards to make sure it’s respectful of the local community,” he said.

The Skripals were targeted in March 2018 by agents of the Russian GRU security service who are thought to have smeared the deadly nerve agent novichok on their front door. Both Skripals were hospitalised but survived, although Dawn Sturgess from nearby Amesbury died after coming into contact with a perfume bottle containing the poison.

The Skripal home was eventually taken over by Defra, who stripped out the entire interior to make it safe. They handed it over to Wiltshire council in October last year. The council is now in the process of renovating it.

A number of restrictions have been placed on the sale, including limiting bids to local residents only. Initially, only residents of Christie Miller Road were invited to make offers, but when no sale was secured the council opened up to the entire St Paul’s ward.

If the house remains unsold by the end of July, residents anywhere in Salisbury who have lived in the city for at least 12 months will be able to purchase the home.

The most significant restriction, however, is that Wiltshire council will retain shared ownership so that it can ensure that the property remains a family home. Asked if the council feared the house becoming a ghoulish tourist attraction, Mr Alford said it was “always a concern we were aware of ”.

“Someone might try and perhaps use the awful events that took place as a way to gain some kind of status. And we didn’t want that happening,” he told The Telegraph. “It should be a family home, it’s a lovely residential road. It’s a family home, and that’s what it needs to be.”

Mr Alford said that the council had considered demolishing the property, as happened with the Amesbury property that Ms Sturgess lived in, but replacing it with a garden, or something similar, also “ran the risk of retaining it as some kind of focal point”.

Salisbury, like much of south-east England, has a serious housing crisis.

The council felt, Mr Alford said, that “the best way to move on was actually to bring it back into use”.

The renovation process for the property has been slow and lengthy, owing to the need to gut the interior.

“When we took it on, it’d been completely stripped back to the brickwork to avoid any risk of contamination,” explained Mr Alford.

He was hopeful, however, that if a buyer was found quickly, they would be able to have a say on the new fittings.