For 10 years Northern Lights was at the heart of the Baltic. Now they’ve been evicted

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On a quiet afternoon in early July 2025, the tenants of Northern Lights — a bustling collective of artists and independent businesses based in the Baltic Triangle — were called into a meeting with Lynn Haime.

Haime is the commercial property specialist who had taken over Baltic Creative, which ran Northern Lights, in 2022. Rich though her experience was in the property game, some were suspicious of her taking the helm. But then again, perhaps such a development was unsurprising given the direction the Baltic was heading. First the commercial property specialists arrive, before you know it a Boxpark has muscled its way in.

In the meeting, Haime came straight out with it. Northern Lights was about to go bust, and the lease arrangement for the warehouse they were sitting in would be handed back over to the landlord: Dusanj Real Estates. 

That was the bad news. The softener was that the eponymous Dusanj (Ajmail Dusanj, that is, the man who owns much of the Baltic) had agreed that all the tenants would be able to see through their existing tenancies until June 2026. A few months later a press release went out further stressing this point. In it, Haime described Northern Lights as a success, and said she “couldn’t be happier to see the community remain in the area longer term.” 

And so it was to everyone’s great shock when, one afternoon late in January 2026, into the warehouse strode Dusanj himself, informing the artists they were all to be evicted. As per one tenant: “He was saying ‘I’m gonna change the locks’, and it was really putting the shits up everyone”.

Dusanj had certainly put the “cat among the pigeons”, as one artist terms it. He said they had to be out by the end of March and was “accusing” people of failing to keep up with the rent — a claim that he vehemently denies. When some of the tenants pushed back, reminding Dusanj they had contracts until June, he allegedly told them he would demolish the walls around them.

When Dusanj got wind that the glassblower John Fenn had spoken to The Echo about the unceremonious eviction, he really wasn’t happy. “He rang me and he said: ‘I can make life pretty difficult for you,’” Fenn says — a claim Dusanj also denies.

The Glassblower’s tale

From a young age, John Fenn wanted to be a glassblower. Fenn had studied glassblowing at college in the ‘80s in Yorkshire, but after graduating he succumbed to nine-to-five drudgery. Another 35 years passed thereafter, before two events changed Fenn’s course. The first was his redundancy, the second was the premiere of a Netflix show: Blown Away. 

With little to lose, Fenn acquired a small arsenal of kilns, annealers and blowpipes and embarked on a wilderness period, traipsing the north west and north Wales looking for the perfect studio. 

Founded in 2016 by Baltic Creative CIC, Northern Lights was a flagship project for the company. It offered studio space and support for artists in a disused warehouse on Mann Street. The rents were low; the spaces were vast. It was the perfect fit: a glass-blown-slipper. John was overjoyed that his new glassblowing studio would be in the creative heart of Liverpool: the Baltic Triangle. Since moving into his studio in the summer of 2020, John’s company — Liverpool Bay Hotshop — has featured on the BBC’s Make It at Market, and he’s been able to make a living as the only glassblower in Liverpool teaching courses.

So the abrupt news of his eviction — alongside the rest of the community of potters, publishers and painters — was “beyond belief.” He adds that this month alone he’s lost over £5,000 — forced to cancel upcoming glassblowing courses and refund deposits. Other tenants have shared their anxiety of trying to find a new space with such short notice. “We're looking at paying more than double, if not triple, what we're paying here,” one tenant says.

As of Wednesday, the Northern Lights warehouse once bustling with creatives is empty. Rumours have begun circulating that it will fall to the same fate as much of the Baltic Triangle: destined to become another car park, luxury flat complex or pricey hotel for stag-do tourists.

So whose to blame here? Naturally, Dusanj is Public Enemy Number One in the eyes of the Northern Lights Creatives. When I call him to ask him about the stories I’ve been hearing about him, he says he’s more than aware he’s depicted as the “bad guy”.

“We had to step in and our plan was to, you know, run it and hopefully grow it and continue with it,” he says. “But you've got all the gas, electricity, the red tape, the health and safety — just massive costs and it's not feasible.” He denies ever telling tenants he’d demolish walls around them, or that he’d make their lives difficult if they stayed. He says while he did call John after he spoke to The Echo, it was because “his facts were incorrect”. 

Dusanj, I soon come to learn, is not the only person the creatives of Northern Lights want answers from. The other is the company who launched the project in the first place: Baltic Creative CIC.