Residents in shock as charity puts whole street up for sale for £1,600,000
Residents were shocked to learn their entire street of 24 homes is being put up for auction.
Dock Road in Sharpness, Gloucestershire, will go under the hammer next week with a guide price of £1,575,000.
The homes, which come with tenants, include twelve terraced houses, eight semi-detached and two detached properties.
The buyer would also get two semi-detached mixed use buildings, a single-storey workshop, three garages and 1.7 acres of vacant land.
One of the buildings was previously the Sharpness Post Office.
The single lot – which currently generates rents of around £168,000 a year for its current owners, the Canal and River Trust – has been described as a ‘rare unbroken street’ by auction house Allsop.
The trust said there ‘would be no change to the residents’ tenancies’, but many fear the new owner will put the rent up, forcing them out.
One, Amanda Cawston, 54, who has lived in one of the homes with her husband and son, 19, for the past three years, said: ‘We thought we would be here forever and now we don’t know what the future holds.
‘It is a shock – we have spent a lot of time getting the house the way we like. We might not be able to afford this home in the long term.
‘We may have to move again. We are not in a position to buy and rents are expensive – we really don’t want to leave if we don’t have to.’
Dave Morse, 78, has who has been a resident on the street for 25 years, also fears being pushed out by a hike in rent.
He said: ‘I would be sad to lose it here because I have done a lot of work inside and outside the house and I would be disappointed if I had to leave..”
Zoe Walker, 45, moved to her house on Dock Road in 2006 – she said if she is forced to leave she has ‘nowhere to go’.
She said: ‘I have been on the council list for a long time but if you have a roof above your head you can’t do anything about it.
‘There is a lot of uncertainty – how much is (rent) going to go up by, if we are actually going to be kept as tenants. Nobody knows, we just got to wait and see.’
A Canal and River Trust spokesperson said: ‘Our charity is in contact with residents about the sale of the properties along Dock Road. The sale will be via an auction at the beginning of November.
‘Our intention is that all the cottages will be sold together as a single lot to a single buyer.
‘We understand that a change of ownership might seem unsettling, but in practice, whilst there will be a change of owner there won’t be a change to our resident’s tenancies i.e. nobody is required to leave their home and the properties will be sold on the same terms as the tenants have in place.
‘We’ll keep in touch with our tenants as the sale process progresses.’
Dock Road is due to be auctioned on Thursday, November 7.
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