Faced With A 300% Rent Increase, Glasgow Artists Escalate Landlord Dispute

A group of Scottish artists have today unveiled a billboard-sized “invoice” addressed to Glasgow City Council, representing what they describe as “unpaid cultural labour” to the value of almost £90 million.

The satirical object, which was sent to local politicians earlier today, symbolises an estimated 1,989,000 hours spent facilitating public-facing exhibitions and events across Glasgow during the past 17 years, valued at the Scottish Artists Union’s recommended rate of £44.90 per hour.

The stunt is the latest in a string of recent action by tenants of Glasgow’s Trongate 103 building, a longstanding not-for-profit arts hub, following news that City Property—the arm’s-length council body that manages the space—intends to increase their rent by 300 percent and implement uncapped service charges.

A potential city-wide loss

Ailie Rutherford, a visual artist who has maintained a studio at Trongate 103 since the space opened almost two decades ago, described today’s events as a means to highlight the scale of loss that will be felt across the city, should the building’s residents be displaced and organisations forced to close their doors.

“We’re not funded, we’re not subsidised and we’re working against the backdrop of really severe art funding cuts,” Rutherford told Ocula. “Artists are making work in really volatile conditions and [City Property] are trying to profit from us—it’s just outrageous.”

In a statement, City Property told Ocula it has been in discussions with tenants for “several months” and described the new rents as “heavily discounted” and “reasonable” given the 17-year history of the building as a cultural hub, and the current circumstances of the tenants.

The landlord said: “It is City Property’s intention to support organisations to remain in the building wherever possible and to ensure that Trongate 103 continues to provide high quality, affordable space for creative, cultural and community organisations.”

Glasgow City Council said in a statement: “We absolutely appreciate the value of the cultural and creative industries in Glasgow, and it should be remembered that our cultural infrastructure is the envy of many cities.”

Around 200 artists’ futures in the balance

The seven organisations based at Trongate 103 include: Glasgow Independent Studio, which provides studio spaces for more than 60 local artists; Project Ability, which provides an arts community for people with learning disabilities and mental ill-health, and the participatory photography gallery, Street Level Photoworks.

The building’s tenants’ forum estimates that, should all the spaces housed there have to shutter, around 200 artists and cultural workers will be affected, as will the approximately 100,000 local and international visitors who attend annually.

Pearl Kinnear, a committee member at Trongate 103’s artist-led exhibition space Glasgow Project Room, told Ocula she believes the council is being “short sighted”, and that following the closure of Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts earlier this year, an empty Trongate 103 would risk losing the city’s art community entirely.

“What’s not being picked up on is the fact that a lot of the artists that are in our studios and the other spaces are reaching out to wider communities,” she said. “We’re the centre point, but what happens here reverberates much further than these front doors.”

The not-for-profit organisations began their dispute with City Property in February, when they were told they had just four weeks to sign new leases or vacate the building. 

Proposed new leases would see rents rise from £1 to £4 per square metre, which the Scottish Labour MSP for Glasgow Paul Sweeney said earlier this week would equate to “£700,000 a year extra costs” for the impacted organisations.

Tenants say the building, which opened in 2009 with £8 million in public funding and was purpose-built to house not-for-profit arts organisations, was originally managed by the council as a charity space, and should never have been passed to City Property to be overseen as a commercial building. 

Kinnear said: “We’re not even asking [the council or City Property] to invest; we’re asking for this building to remain for the purpose that it was built for, for it to remain the same and for the goalposts not to move. That’s all we’re asking.”

“An impossible financial situation”

The deadline for the organisations to decide whether to accept new leases passed last Friday, although Ocula understands that negotiations are still ongoing.

However, faced with what tenants have described as “an impossible financial situation”, the film-focused charity Glasgow Media Access Centre (GMAC) had already made the decision to relocate to The Pyramid community centre in the Anderston area of the city. 

Mark Langdon, chair of GMAC’s board of directors, told Ocula that, in the midst of a stressful and financially damaging situation, the choice to move was made to preserve GMAC’s 44-year history.

“Negotiating with City Property is a nightmare—both they and Glasgow City Council have let every organisation in the building down…” he told Ocula. “They have been told again and again that their financial demands are unachievable and they just don’t listen and frankly don’t care.”

He urged the arm’s-length body—which, according to its website, values excellence, equality, community and trust—to return the space to the council’s property portfolio as a cultural venue. 

“Start acting in line with the values expressed on your website—not as rogue landlords,” he said.

City Property told Ocula that it refutes these accusations, and that “discussions have been conducted in a fair, reasonable and professional manner by all parties”. It noted that rent reviews are “conducted within a regulatory framework and are a negotiated process with options for referral to third party/arbitration where an impasse is reached”.

Thousands sign petition

At the time of writing, a petition calling on City Property to reconsider the new leases had been signed by more than 22,000 people. The petition warns that emptying Trongate 103 would “risk obliterating Glasgow’s creative cultural legacy”.

Supporters of the arts organisations have also written to Glasgow City Council to share their views. Scottish artist and musician Victoria Morton, who is represented by Sadie Coles, took to her Instagram stories to share that her first exhibition was at Trongate 103-based Transmission Gallery.

Her post read, in part: “Several of my peer group who were on the Transmission [Gallery] committee, or had exhibitions there, went on to become educators at art schools and key figures in the broader art world. They have become Turner Prize winners, curators, gallery directors and exhibitors at international art biennials and festivals.

“…I am completely dumbfounded at the prospect of Transmission Gallery and all its sister spaces, which should be protected and celebrated by the City Council, instead being threatened with closure.”

At a Glasgow City council meeting earlier today, Scottish Green Party councillor Christy Mearns tabled a motion urging the council and City Property to “engage urgently with tenants, partners and funders to reconsider the sustainability of rent” for the Trongate 103’s tenants. 

Means told the meeting: “17 years ago, an agreement was made which saw this building transformed into an important creative hub. With that commitment, significant public funding was secured, alongside a promise of a 25-year affordable lease, which would allow these organisations to thrive. 

“They have honoured that promise every day since, giving back far more than they have ever taken. Yet today, that promised future is under threat.”