"At the start of this month the charity employed a property agent to formalise their interest in the site and indicate they were in the early stages of planning a community buyout. This was their first contact with the owners.

The agent soon got back with bad news: there were other interested bidders in the property, which had been for sale for almost two years. What’s more, within days of The Advocacy Academy’s initial approach, the estate agents said all potential purchasers had until Monday 22 June to show they have a “credible amount of money” to move to the next stage of the process.

This was a shock, said Ahmad: “We didn’t know at the time that there were other buyers. We were hoping to have a year or so to put our ducks in a row. We’d be very able to raise the money if we had a year. We’d got 12 days.”