Tenants Challenge Rent Increases at Glasgow Cultural Hub
Tenants at one of Glasgow’s prominent cultural centres are contesting what they label as “unsustainable” rent hikes, with critics branding the managing landlord a “rogue agency” enforcing similar increases on vulnerable organisations citywide.
As tenants face signing new leases or receiving eviction notices this week, hundreds protested outside City Property’s offices last Friday. This demonstration highlights mounting concerns over the conduct and accountability of City Property, an arm’s-length organisation managing hundreds of buildings on behalf of Glasgow city council.
Political Response and Tenant Concerns
During First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood last Wednesday, Scotland’s First Minister was informed that “City Property is out of control.”
Scottish Labour MSP for Glasgow, Paul Sweeney, urged Swinney to intervene urgently to prevent City Property from “forcing out” the seven tenants at the Trongate 103 cultural hub with an additional £700,000 annual cost, which is four times the previous rent and ten times the service charges.
The Trongate 103 building, refurbished in 2009 with £8 million of public funds to foster a sustainable grassroots arts community, houses key cultural organisations such as Transmission Gallery, Street Level Photography, and Glasgow Print Studio.
City Property’s Position and Tenant Responses
City Property strongly denies eviction claims, emphasizing that notices to quit are standard procedure during lease renewals and that the new rents remain considerably lower than commercial rates.
Tenants at Trongate 103 have written to the Scottish government’s cabinet secretary for culture, Angus Robertson, and all MSPs, warning that the “current trajectory risks dismantling one of Glasgow’s most important cultural assets.”
Mark Langdon, chair of Glasgow Media Access Centre, which relocated to a nearby community centre, stated:
"After 17 years in the building we were given only four weeks to decide. We feel our experience has been coercive and unfair, and very far from the values of diversity and community that City Property champions on their website."
A spokesperson for City Property said:
"City Property are continuing to discuss new leases with the tenants of 103 Trongate on sustainable and acceptable terms for both parties. It is City Property’s firm intention to work with all tenants to secure their long-term occupation of 103 Trongate.
These discussions are being conducted in a fair, reasonable and professional manner by both parties."
Glasgow Print Studio reported being effectively compelled to sign an interim monthly lease "to maintain our operations" but conveyed to City Property that this was done "under duress" and without accepting the "unsustainable increases" to rent and uncapped service charges.
Disputes Beyond Arts Organisations
Other Glasgow organisations report different experiences. Turning Point Scotland (TPS), a major social care provider, is disputing £805,000 in "dilapidation" charges with City Property after vacating a property, despite having invested £1 million in building repairs.
Chris Wallace, a TPS consultant, said:
"City Property likes to say this is a negotiation. The council says it’s a commercial dispute and won’t get involved."
City Property declined to comment on ongoing matters but stated it has "acted in accordance with our respective procedure, the lease provisions" and adhered to professional standards.
Wallace informed of other cases where charity tenants faced untenable rent or service charge increases from City Property but were reluctant to speak due to ongoing lease disputes.
"This is a rogue agency running amok in the city, banking that tenants don’t want to fall out with the council. Because City Property are an arm’s-length organisation, they seem to avoid scrutiny and don’t recognise any duty of public value that the council certainly has."
Another prominent charity renting multiple City Property properties, speaking anonymously, expressed:
"I’m worried that if they get away with this they will roll it out to even more vulnerable organisations. Their maintenance of properties has been a complete shambles but there’s no accountability for an arm’s-length organisation."
City Property’s Accountability and Council Oversight
City Property rejected these "baseless claims," highlighting that it is "fully accountable to and scrutinised by its Board which comprises both elected members and senior officers of Glasgow city council."
A spokesperson added:
"City Property fully complies with Glasgow city council’s concessionary rent policy and will continue to do so. The maintenance of our properties is professionally managed within the terms of the leases, and where we recover these costs from tenants, this is a transparent and regulated process."
The Scottish Greens plan to introduce a motion at the city council next week calling for "greater collective intervention" to support Trongate 103 tenants and enhanced oversight of arm’s-length organisations like City Property.
Scottish Greens councillor and deputy provost Christy Mearns stated:
"Although the Council’s landlord, City Property, are doing what they were set up to do when the then-Labour administration passed the council’s commercial properties to them, Trongate 103 should never have been passed over as a purely commercial asset, as the organisations within it are not commercial by their very nature and nor should they be."
Sweeney also called for increased oversight:
"This is a public agency that should have the public interest at its core. After the disaster that we witnessed in Union Street [the recent fire that gutted a historic Victorian building], it adds to the sense that there is no coherence driving the care of Glasgow city centre."
A Glasgow city council spokesperson commented:
"Our understanding is that the discussions on the new leases for spaces at Trongate 103 are ongoing, and that these are taking place in a reasonable way between all concerned."
