Historic Leeds factory home to 30 small businesses to be sold

Aire Street Workshops is an affordable hub for independent businesses

A historic Leeds building where more than 30 small businesses are based is being sold by the council.

Aire Street Workshops has been a "flexible, collaborative space" for independent companies for the past 30 years but has now have been told to vacate by 31 January 2025.

One trader said the sale would be a "direct threat to our existence" and an attack on the city's small businesses.

Leeds City Council has been approached for comment.

One of the start-ups based at the former factory is Take It Easy Labs, a family-run film business.

Co-owner Joe Singleton, 36, said: "It feels like a massive slap in the face eliminating some of the creative businesses in this building that were used by the council to spread the Leeds City of Culture message.

"The news came as a really big shock yesterday.

"We found out from a letter from the letting company".

Take It Easy Labs started three and a half years ago and have always had its premises at Aire Street Workshops.

Joe Singleton, 36, called the imminent sale a "slap in the face"

If the business has to move, Mr Singleton said his rent would "at least double, if not more" as Aire Street Workshops was set up to be an "easy, affordable space" for small enterprises.

He added: "It would be really complicated not just for us but for all the other businesses."

Take It Easy Labs also posted the reason it believed the 150-year old building was being sold was so the council could get closer to "reaching its carbon neutral goal".

"It won't be the council's problem then."

The company also posted: "Illogically, selling a building which is over 150 years old, a hub for creative industry in Leeds, is more carbon neutral than simply updating the historically significant structure which already exists."

According to council documents, Aire Street Workshops is an independent, not-for-profit company set up in 1981 with finance from the Department of the Environment and Leeds City Council to provide small low cost office and manufacturing units.

It comprises of 31 businesses and employs more than 150 people with 60% of them being under the age of 25.