Keswick café holiday let threat prompts buy-out bid

Chinty Turnbull fears a buyer would turn the flats into holiday homes

A café owner is trying to raise £800,000 to buy the building she rents to stop it being turned into holiday lets.

Chinty Turnbull, from Keswick, Cumbria, wants the property, which also has four flats, to be community-owned for people who live and work in the town.

Houses were being sold as holiday homes "for silly money", pricing local people out of the market, she said.

"I thought, I'm going to make a stand," she said.

Ms Turnbull, who started her business just before the first Covid lockdown two years ago, warned the service industry would lose staff if local people could not afford to live in Keswick.

"The town is inhabited by people on holiday, which is fine, but they're here temporarily," she said.

"They need people to service their holiday homes, they need people to serve them coffee, they need people to clean their cafés and things."

The property on St John's Street has been put on the market

The timing of her campaign was a "massive issue" because "people are throwing silly money at properties" which were selling "rapidly", she added.

Resident David Doulin said the town was "slowly being bought up" by people who did not live there.

"It's important that there are properties available at reasonable rents for locals," he said.

Ms Turnbull hopes communities around the country will buy back their buildings

Ms Turnbull has raised £65,000 since finding out her landlord was selling the property 10 days ago.

"Yesterday I had three local women who went to school here handing me cash," she said.

"They haven't got much but they offered me a £1,000."

Ms Turnbull said she hoped the campaign would be an "inspiration" for people to group together and buy other buildings in the town.

"Buy back your town," she said.

"Buy back Keswick. Buy back everywhere."