Leave us aLorne!

Grim New Year: charity’s tenants fight Lorne Street eviction 

A social media campaign and local politicians are supporting a petition to save over 100 families from eviction after a charity put their Lorne Street homes up for sale. Tenants have set up Lorne Community Association (LCA) and hope to transfer their houses into a new community-run housing co-operative – but they have only THREE MONTHS to prove their plan stacks up.

The Agnes Hunter Trust says the sale of  the Leith homes is a more effective way of maintaining income that can then be given out as grants to the local community.

The trust was set up in 1954 by Miss Agnes Hunter with the properties built by her father in the 1870s and they have since been let by the Hunter family to the people of Leith. The properties and the rental income received are then used by the Hunter Trust to support good works and worthy causes in the Leith community and beyond – these include support for people suffering from arthritis and other health conditions and ‘assistance with the education and training of disadvantaged people’.

Two hundred tenants have been issued letters of four months statutory notice to quit and find alternative rented accommodation, but campaigners have appealed for a year to turn the homes into a local community-run housing co-operative.

Petitioner Melanie Weigang said: “Over 200 tenants in Lorne Street, Leith are facing eviction. We ask that City of Edinburgh Council does everything possible within its powers, including financial support, to support the tenants to save the community and to set up a housing co-op.”

The Trust has confirmed it will resume the process of evicting tenants in January if the trustees cannot be persuaded that the LCA can buy the flats at market rates.

The first evictees will be those who have lived in a property for less than four years.

Many of the old tenement properties are understood to be in a poor state and require modernisation, but tenant Lucy Dey said she and many others have nowhere else to go. She said: “We’re not asking for much – just a year. By then we’re confident we’d have a co-op and the homes will remain in the community.”

The LCA petition to the City of Edinburgh Council says:

Over 200 tenants in Lorne Street, Leith are facing eviction by the Agnes Hunter Trust, a charitable trust that owns over 100 flats in Lorne Street. The trust was established in 1954 by Miss Agnes Hunter. The properties were built by her father in the 1870ties and since then have been let by the Hunter family to the people of Leith. Miss Hunter herself lived for many years in Leith until she died in 1954.

The properties and the income received from its tenants have always built the core of the charity. The trust informed all tenants on 11 June 2015 that it decided to dispose all of its properties within 3-4 years to re-invest the income from the sale of the properties and with a view to increasing the amount available for distribution to charities.

The tenants with the support from MP Deidre Brock, MSP Malcolm Chisholm, Councillors Nick Gardner, Angela Blacklock and Cammy Day asked the trustees to put the evictions on hold for 12 months in order to set up a housing co-op with the support of the council but that request was denied and only a 4 months period was granted which will only be extended if we can agree with the landlord on a valuation basis for the property portfolio by then.

We kindly ask that the City of Edinburgh Council does everything possible within its powers, including financial support, to support the tenants to save the community and to set up a housing co-op.

As word spreads about their plight LCA’s organisers are confident that more and more people will support their plan – they delighted with response to their petition so far.