AMAZON has today come under attack from the owner of the company's Gourock warehouse for refusing to sign a new lease which led to an eviction notice being served.

The boss of M7 Real Estate, which controls the firm's Faulds Park distribution centre, says he has no desire to see his tenants leave but was left with no choice but to take the online retail giant to court.

A judge upheld the landlord's eviction notice, which has left around 400 staff who work at Amazon's Gourock plant fearing for their futures.

Richard Croft, executive chairman of M7, says the blame lies solely with his tenant and that he has no intention of evicting the company, let alone seeing any workers lose their job.

Instead, he has accused Amazon of refusing to negotiate on an extension to its lease, which ran out on August 1, and of using a legal loophole to stay on and keep rent 'artificially low'.

Mr Croft claims the firm's current rates - around £400,000 a year for the 300,000 sq ft site - are probably the cheapest in the western world and says he will not be 'bullied' by one of the richest companies in the globe.

He has also called into question Amazon's commitment to Inverclyde by not pledging its future to the Gourock hub.

Speaking exclusively to the Telegraph, Mr Croft said: "We would love Amazon to stay, that would be our best outcome. "But if they're going to play silly with us - we're obviously not as big as Amazon but we're not a small company either - I'm not going to get bullied by Amazon.

"It's not going to happen. "We would love them to stay and we only went to court to try and get them to have a sensible conversation with us."

Mr Croft says his company is after more rent because Amazon was paying rates for a lease signed 15 years ago.

He claims the retailer refused to discuss terms which led to an eviction notice being served in February giving Amazon six months to vacate the premises, which is more than the 40 days' notice required under common law.

The tenant argued that the terms of the agreement meant they were entitled to a year's warning to leave.

The case went to the Court of Session and a judge ruled in favour of M7.

Amazon remain in place at the Gourock warehouse, insisting it is 'business as usual' and say they will appeal the decision.

Mr Croft said: "Currently by market capita it's the second biggest company in the world.

"The sums of money involved in terms of the rent in the grand scheme of Amazon aren't neither here nor there.

"I'm being transparent and we are looking for a rental uplift but at the moment they are paying circa £400,000 a year for a building that's 300,000 square feet.

"That would be probably the cheapest warehouse space they have anywhere in the western world just about.

"It might be that they don't want to be in Gourock any more.

"What I'm not going to have is them using tacit relocation, which is a strange part of arcane Scottish law, to try and stay there for another year at highly discounted rent whilst they work out their future.

"From our point of view, we don't want people to think we're trying to shut the factory down because why would we?

"All we're trying to do is work out what it is that they want."

Amazon officials insist they are committed to Gourock and are trying to reach an agreement.

A spokesperson told the Tele: "We continue to negotiate with the landlord in good faith to resolve this matter.

"Any claims to the contrary, or any other speculation, are completely without foundation."