Labour Group leader Kevin Keenan has called on Dundee City Council to drop legal action against a school janitor they want to evict from his tied house at Sidlaw View Primary School.
Jim Hayter, 61, who has lived in the schoolhouse with his family for 14 years, only found out he is to be evicted in December after his daughter heard a rumour in the classroom.
The janitor, his wife Margaret and their four daughters have been told the property is to be bulldozed and replaced by playing fields at the new Baldragon Academy, having received an eviction notice just days before Christmas.
The case is due to call in the sheriff court on Thursday after Mr Hayter said he would have to be “dragged kicking and screaming” from his home.
Now Mr Keenan wants Roger Mennie, head of the council’s democratic and legal services, to step back from the action and work with the family to find them a permanent home in the area.
He said: “Mr Hayter is an employee of the council and he’s looking to continue to be a tenant. He wants to move from the school account into the housing account.
“I think the legal action is a bit heavy handed. I’m calling on Roger Mennie to suspend the legal action while they work together on this. If he doesn’t agree, then I intend going to ask Councillor Ken Guild to intervene. I would hopefully think that legal action is the last resort and there are ways to discuss this and come up with some sort of settlement.”
“A spokesman for Dundee City Council said: “We do not comment on ongoing legal matters.”
Mr Hayter said he was flabbergasted when he heard the news of his family’s impending eviction.
He said: “The first I heard was when my nine-year-old daughter came home from school saying she had heard rumours that we were to be evicted.
“I immediately got in touch with my bosses who confirmed that our house was to be demolished to make way for the new secondary and primary school and their playing fields.
“My youngest daughter attends Downfield Primary School and I am not prepared to move her from there, so we want to stay in the area.”
Mr Hayter insists: “They will need to take me kicking and screaming out of my house if they can’t give me and my family anywhere else to stay.”
He said he had been offered temporary accommodation but he was not prepared to move to that as he was concerned he and his family would be forgotten about.
He added: “I have worked for Dundee City Council for 16 years 14 at Sidlaw View and I don’t think this is any way to treat me.”