Charities given four months to find a new home

Charities and community and arts groups have been told they have about four months to find new premises, otherwise they face eviction from their current base.

Eaton House, owned by Friargate JV, is a 14-storey office block built in 1975 near Coventry's main railway station.

But the owners said the building was reaching the end of its useful life and "becoming increasingly uneconomic to maintain".

Lorella Medici, from mental health charity Arty Folks, said everyone in the block was "struggling to raise funds to carry on".

Until now, the group have been paying a "peppercorn rent" - effectively zero - at Eaton House, but moving to a new location at the same low rate could prove difficult.

"It's so much harder to get money from the council or the lottery, so finding another place on peppercorn rent, for us, is nearly essential," Medici added.

In an email to the BBC, the owners added that Eaton House would remain open until the last telecoms operator could relocate their mast from the roof and when that happened, expected by June, the remaining tenants would have to leave.

Arty Folks have used Eaton House as their base for more than 20 years but Medici said she was not angry at the deadline to move out.

"In the last few years, so many things have gone wrong. There was a water burst into our floor and the heating failed last Christmas," she said.

"It's such an old building, it's just not feasible to repair it."

That sentiment was echoed by Simon McCarthy, chief executive of The Coventry Irish Society.

The group was founded in 1993 to give support to vulnerable Irish people in Coventry, including processing Irish passport applications.

The charity has been on the second floor of Eaton House since 2022 but, like the other tenants, faces having to move out by June.

McCarthy said they were in talks with their main stakeholders and the charity that organised the lease, to find a new home.

He added "We're still looking for that secret millionaire, but I'm not sure he knows he's supposed to show himself, or her, at some point!"

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