Edinburgh baker fuming at 'losing £70k as council backs out of planned lease'

An Edinburgh baker has expressed his fury after claiming the council backed out of a planned lease with the company – leaving him £70,000 out-of-pocket.

South Queensferry’s Dune Bakery, known for its massive croissants, is understood to have been negotiating for months to open a second location in a property the council owns elsewhere in the village.

But owner Lewis Gillon said on the day the lease was to be signed, the council backed out – telling him they now planned on using the space for archival storage instead.

Mr Gill said the financial loss was ‘huge’ for the bakery, and that he wanted to see the decision overturned.

He added: “I live here, I have a business here and I am trying my best to make South Queensferry as good as it can be because I really love it here.

“But this comes just days after they have started work on the roads which is going to be happening on the high street for the next 18 months with very little assistance for small businesses.”

He said £20,000 of the total was for legal expenses and design costs, while the remaining £50,000 is a sum due to contractors who were set to work on the property.

Mr Gill has faced a rocky road in reaching South Queensferry, where Dune opened early last year near the waterfront in a converted bookies.

He ran the Plant Bae bakery in Leith, as well as Grams – but was forced to shutter both in the aftermath of Covid.

But the baker was positive about the new space, where he planned to use a large area inside to host a community market on the weekends.

Mr Gill said he wanted to offer vendors their first day free of charge, saying that he had started in a market and understood the difficulties that people starting businesses face.

And he said the new space would help his business, given that it would offer customers a bigger space to come and enjoy their sweet treats.

Mr Gill said: “When they called and said they had bad news, I just thought the date of entry was getting pushed a couple of days – I was not expecting them to completely pull out of it.

“I’d been putting in a lot of work and looking to hire more people and sourcing equipment, trying to plan the whole thing.

“I was disappointed, and really angry. This isn’t a private landlord, it’s the council, they should operate at a higher standard than this. It’s no wonder no one ever trusts them.”

Edinburgh Council has been contacted for comment.