Sir Chris Hoy Set For Charity Sleepout

15 December 2016, 11:24 | Updated: 15 December 2016, 11:25

Sir Chris Hoy will join some of Scotland's most wealthy and influential people in a sleep out on Thursday night to raise money for a new village for the homeless.

Social Bite plans to provide a low-cost, supervised and safe living environment for up to 20 homeless people with 10 purpose-built homes in Granton, Edinburgh, and needs to raise #500,000 for the project.

As part of a fundraising drive, about 250 of the most influential people in Scotland are to sleep rough in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square.

The group will sleep out from 7pm on December 15 until 7am the next morning when they will be served breakfast by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

They will need to wrap up warm as temperatures are expected to be between 7C (44F) to 8C (46F) overnight, and some drizzle is possible.

A Met Office spokesman said: "Temperatures will stay above freezing and it will be quite a cloudy night, though there is a chance of a bit of drizzle in the early hours of the morning from midnight onwards.''

Work is expected to begin on the village early next year, with the first residents moving in by the summer.

It will be run by Social Bite with the EDI Group and the City of Edinburgh Council.

Social Bite co-founder Josh Littlejohn said: ''There's a beautiful symmetry that the country's most wealthy and influential people are braving the freezing cold for one night to help fund a long-term solution to homelessness."

Olympic champion Sir Chris has previously said he is looking forward to the sleep-out.

Earlier this month, he said: ''It takes a lot to get me to give up my bed but the Social Bite village is an extremely worthwhile cause.

''Social Bite is being bold in trying to show how the cycle of homelessness can be broken, by giving people support and stability, and that's something that I'm keen to back.

''Sleeping rough for one night might just be a small gesture but the money raised will go to kick-start the fundraising for this extraordinary project.''

Social Bite cafes allows customers to ''pay forward'' meals for the homeless and around a quarter of its staff are formerly homeless.

Movie star Leonardo DiCaprio stopped for lunch at Social Bite venture Home in Edinburgh's west end last month and his visit followed that of Hollywood star George Clooney to Social Bite's Rose Street branch in the city a year earlier.