ANGRY tenants confronted the landlord who is telling them to leave one of Bournemouth's landmark apartment buildings.

Almost half the residents at Boscombe's San Remo Towers will be ordered out when their tenancies expire.

Businessman Simon Bladon - whose company bought the building recently for around £17 million - was barracked over his plans to sell the flats as he faced 80 residents.

Seven tenants of the listed art deco building have already been given notice to quit - four of them by Christmas Day. Residents with short-term tenancies, ranging from two to six years, will be asked to leave when the agreements run out.

Nora Osborn told Mr Bladon: "On Monday morning, seven people here had a very curt note put through their letterboxes. It might as well have been a bomb, as we were just devastated."

Steve Collins, of Age Concern, told Mr Bladon there should have been consultation. "You're putting older people out on the streets," he said.

Boscombe West councillor Phil Carey is a tenant at San Remo Towers and will have to leave in June after 12 years. He said the people being ordered out by Christmas had been badly treated. "I think it's the suddenness of all that's happened," he said.

Tenant Pearl Berg said: "Most of the people here sold their houses to retire. I've put money in my home to stay there for the rest of my days. I'm 72 years old and I don't want to move again. It's so traumatic to move."

Mr Bladon, boss of West Ella Holdings, said many tenants had agreements which meant they could not be moved.

"What worries me is that the people who've got all this going have upset the people who have got nothing to worry about, which is over 50 per cent," he told the Daily Echo.

He said those with short-term tenancies had mostly been in the building less than six years. "In the past, some of the assured short-term tenancy agreements have been renewed. That's what they're expecting because the previous owner had the policy of renewing. It's a change of policy," he said.

"I don't want to upset old people. It's the last thing I want to do. Within the bounds of what the bank will allow me to do, I'm happy to talk to people and I will bend over as backwards as I can to make their time of moving as easy as possible."