A PIECE of greenbelt land that a cash-strapped council sat on for nearly 60 years could become a storage facility as it is set to be sold off.

Eleven bidders put forward offers to purchase Lavender Farm from the local authority, which bought the site in 1966 and has sat idle ever since.

According to council leader James Swindlehurst (Lab: Cippenham Green), the top bidder, who uses the Bucks’ side of the land, made numerous bids for the site before and could use the farm as a storage facility.

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The council resisted the previous offers because it was eyeing to build new homes at the site but because part of it is within Buckinghamshire Council’s jurisdiction, this required talks which fell through.

Speaking at Thursday’s cabinet sub-committee on asset disposals, Cllr Swindlehurst said: “[The sale] is still a decent sum of money and there’s still high-risk in the short-term because Bucks are not keen to develop any of that land at the moment and have almost refused to cooperate with us in our discussions about the north-east expansion.”

Members heard the council would have received a reduced offer for the farm if they added an overage provision, which would have effectively triggered a mechanism that would allow the council to receive additional funds after the sale’s completion if residential development did take place at the site.

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The “irked” council leader said: “I can’t say I’m entirely content but there’s a prize of getting these disposals chugged through, getting a healthy return in this year’s budget, and moving on to bigger fish in the pond in terms of sites we own that are much more lucrative than [Lavender Farm].”

Members agreed to recommend to cabinet to approve the sale of the site at Monday’s meeting.

Slough Observer:

Elsewhere within the meeting, councillors agreed to renew Halfords’ lease, which an agreement was delayed due to the council declaring bankruptcy last year. A further delay could have seen the council in court for the judge to decide on the terms of the new lease.

The council bought the Bath Road site in 2016 and has been leased to Halfords since 2001.

Cllr Swindlehurst said the local authority will “no doubt” sell off the building in order to help reduce its £760m borrowing debt and £479m blackhole.

He said: “[Renewing the lease] may make the building more attractive but the downside also may be others who want to turn it immediately into another use will have to wait or negotiate with Halfords to pursue that end.”