Nottingham City Council's leader has said the disposal of several buildings owned by the authority is not a "reckless sale of the family silver". The council is aiming to have reviewed 550 of its assets by the end of this year as part of broader efforts to cut costs and reduce the authority's debt levels.
The reviews look at whether the council should keep ownership of a building or piece of land, or sell it to generate a one-off capital receipt. The decision has already been taken to sell off several council properties, including a building on King Street occupied by the Rosa's Thai restaurant and a property on Strelley Road occupied by a branch of GoLocalExtra.
The issue was raised at a full council meeting on Monday (March 6) when Councillor Kevin Clarke, the leader of the Nottingham Independents, asked: "Does the leader realise that these properties are not owned by the council, we are mere custodians of the assets and they should not be sold off every time the council seems to find itself in financial difficulties."
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But Cllr David Mellen, the leader of the Labour authority, responded: "There are some things that are not particularly useful to us. Were you aware that the council up until recently owned nine farms, is that part of our everyday business, does it help the people of Nottingham to have nine farms?
"They were giving us a small amount of rent and the capital receipt was far more valuable. We will look at things case by case, we're not going to start selling council buildings that are well used by people."
Last year saw the release of an updated 'Together for Nottingham Plan', which seeks to address Nottingham City Council's financial challenges, and one of the key updates was around the assets owned by the authority. Other recent asset sales have included the sale of a former veterinary hospital.
Cllr Mellen added at Monday's meeting: "This is not some reckless sale of the family silver. It's a carefully considered programme of reviewing everything that we own and making a judgement as to whether a capital receipt from the sale of the property is more valuable to the council at the present time than retaining ownership, which of course following some reviews, we will choose to do."
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