Tributes to estate agent who became Scotland's youngest councillor

Tributes have been paid to the Glasgow businessman Roy Slater, who has died at the age of 76.

He was a founding partner of the estate agency Slater, Hogg and Howison, which was set up in 1975 and sold to TSB in 1986 for £9m.

Fellow agent Alan Grant credited Slater with helping estate agency evolve “into a proper, structured, disciplined and managed business in Scotland”.

He went on to found Roy Slater Estate Agents after parting company with the venture he founded. It would go on to become the largest independent agency in the west of Scotland.

He was a lifelong Liberal and served as a councillor on the old Eastwood Council, a tenure that would last seven years following his election in 1967. At the time, he was the youngest councillor in Scotland.

Slater was the honorary president of East Renfrewshire Liberal Democrats. Former candidate Allan Steele said: “His loyalty and his liberalism mean that he never turned away a friend in need.”

His friend of more than 50 years, former Scottish Labour Party chairman Bob Thomson also paid tribute.

He said: “He was kind, generous and considerate to everyone he worked and socialised with, a true gentlemen who will be missed by his many friends.”

Friends and former colleagues have been paying tribute to estate agency founder Roy Slater. STV News

Mr Slater was made an OBE in 2015 for services to business and charity in Scotland, receiving the award from the Queen at a service at Holyrood.

He suffered a stroke at the age of 64 and a second one in 2019, which greatly curtailed his quality of life.

He was a popular man who was well known on Glasgow’s southside, where his knowledge of property was encyclopaedic.

At his funeral service on January 11, STV News special correspondent Bernard Ponsonby led tributes, saying: “He was a man of fastidious courtesy and impeccable manners, a man who never allowed his prominent status or comfortable lifestyle to separate him from an army of friends who warmed to his modest, warm and unassuming nature.”

Roy Slater is survived by his brother Jim and by nieces Fiona and Joan and by cousin Carol.