Desperate house hunters camp out to secure home in Lenzie school area

Stewart Milne Homes are building a mixture of terraced, semi-detached and detached homes at their “Gadloch Green” development in the village of Auchinloch in North Lanarkshire.

There are 51 properties which will be available on a first come first served basis from Saturday, September 17. The development will also include a range of social housing.

The home-builders site office is in the car park of The Golden Pheasant pub and restaurant.

The first would-be buyer arrived on Tuesday, with more appearing today and yesterday.

Family members have been taking it in turns to guard their spot and people have been sleeping in their cars or pitching a tent.

One buyer even paid someone to queue up in an effort to secure one of the homes.

The majority of people there today cited the school as the main reason for queueing up, and to avoid the competitive element of having to bid for a property in the much-sought after Lenzie area. Most of them had been brought up in either Lenzie or Kirkintilloch, or worked locally.

One said: “The bidding process is so stressful and more often than not you lose out.”

A spokesperson for Stewart Milne said: “All properties have been designed to be flexible for modern family life and sit within the catchment area for Lenzie Academy, making the development an ideal place for families and young professionals.

“There are over 1000 names on the database. It is first come first served and properties are not able to be reserved any earlier than Saturday to make sure it’s fair for people waiting.”

At village store Auchinloch Grocers, Mrs Kaur who owns the local shop jointly with her husband said she hoped the new development would be a welcome boost for business.

She added: “The new Link Road took away a lot of business from us so it is nice that new families will be moving in and hopefully they will support their local village store.

“I heard some people were camping out and we wish them good luck.”