A group of friends who are transforming a derelict former factory site into a community garden have been threatened with eviction by Dundee City Council.
The group is set for a major stand-off with the council after erecting barricades at the entrance to the council-owned land, the site of the former Pitalpin jute mill off Liff Road.
Lewis Brady, who lives in a roundhouse he has built from recycled materials found on the site, says council officers have told them to get off the land and threatened to send in the bulldozers.
The 26-year-old musician has lived there for the past 18 months or so, during which he and his friends have started renovating the site, which sits immediately behind the Whip Inn in Liff Road.
Although Lewis lives and sleeps in the roundhouse, he uses his nearby parents’ home for his basic needs.
Since building the house around 18 months ago he has erected planters for fruit and vegetables and plans to provide free organic food for the most needy.
However, council officers have now issued Lewis, who plays in Dundee band Delilah and the Samsons, with a notice to quit the land. He said: “It has been derelict for more than 20 years. It’s what used to be a breezeblock factory next to the old mill.
“The council has been using the land as a dumping ground, with tons of fibreglass and plasterboard, and I’ve been working on it for the past year and a half to tidy it up.
“I became homeless and was camping there at first, then I build the mud and clay roundhouse and we’ve made planters and we’ll be using organic compost for fruit and veg.
“The only contact I’ve had was a letter on my front door and it said I had to remove my vehicle from the land within 24 hours or they would send in their wrecking crews today, but nobody has turned up yet.
“It’s a bog-standard one they give out to travellers, I think, because I don’t have a vehicle on the land.
“I think what’s happened is some council workers came round saying they had to demolish a wall as it was dangerous and they were trying to work out how to get their equipment in.
“They saw what we have been doing we’ve already started taking part of the wall down before it fell and we’ve been using the materials for the garden.
“They’ve obviously reported it and now we’ve had this notice.”
Lewis and his group of around 70 friends have now launched aFacebook campaign to try to save their beloved project.
Fellow band member Martha Smart, 19, a young persons’ support worker with Action for Children, said: “The main issue is that the council have not used it for anything productive; it’s all destructive to the environment right in the middle of the city.
“They’re destroying the nature there with all their dumping.”
Lewis added: “We’ve put a year and a half of backbreaking work into revitalising this land and creating a little hidden paradise, an oasis in the city.
“A lot of people have put a lot of work into this and we’re not going to roll over.”
A spokesman for Dundee City Council said: “Officers have visited the site on a number of occasions and the council is in the process of taking the appropriate steps.”