GOVERNMENT-APPOINTED fixers will “not push” Slough councillors to transfer its housing stock to private landlords.
In a bid to reduce its £760m borrowing debt and £479m blackhole, the cash-drained Slough Borough Council is needing to sell up to £600m of its property and land as well as make £20m yearly savings.
Its property advisor Avison Young has identified that 108 of the council’s assets could generate £335m in sales and a transfer of its housing stock could fetch £200m, totalling £535m.
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The council has a property portfolio valued at £1.3bn, including £ 551m worth of council homes, £163m of investment property, £118m of infrastructure, and £22m of assets under construction.
As part of the asset disposal strategy, the local authority made a hierarchy of what property and land should be the first to go. Investment properties, which were bought as income generators such as the Odeon Cinema in Basingstoke, are at the top and transferring its housing stock is at the bottom.
However, just because the council’s own stock is within the paper does not mean it is certain it will transfer it to the private sector, like housing associations.
Last year, council leader James Swindlehurst (Lab: Cippenham Green) insisted that tenants “should feel protected” when they were first considering selling up to £600m of its assets.
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Lead commissioner Max Caller, who was called in by the government to help fix the council, said it’s ultimately up to councillors to make that call as they examine the council’s property portfolio and then decide what to sell to pay off its borrowings.
He said: “[Councillors] have not taken the decision and I’m not pushing them today to take that decision sooner rather than later. They have enough things they need to get on with all the other things they declared surplus to push all that through.”
If a decision is forthcoming, it won’t be before May’s election as a lot of consultation work has to be done before any action is taken.
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