Concerns have been raised over multi-national corporations in London buying up valued community assets in Nottingham and "extracting wealth out of our local economy". Fears were raised by councillors as the city council discussed its asset sales plan through which it hopes to rake in more than £90m to help balance its books.
During a scrutiny committee meeting at Loxley House on June 8, Nottingham City Council revealed it has 3,600 property assets, spread across the city, county and places such as Birmingham, and it is estimated the value of these is more than £1bn. According to Nicki Jenkins, the director of economic development and property, it is hoped the sale of the council's earmarked assets should bring in roughly £93m over the next few years.
In 2020/21 it was estimated the selling of assets would raise £11.9m, but in fact £12.9m was brought in. Then again in 2021/22 a total of £17.8m was raised from asset sales, beating the council's prediction of £7.9m.
Read more: The five children's centres facing closure
While this is good progress a number of serious concerns have been raised. In particular councillors remain worried about the sale of surplus community buildings such as children's centres, a number of which have already been declared 'surplus'.
Speaking of the situation David Mellen, the leader of the council and Dales ward councillor, said: "What we have got to protect in the council is are there costs coming back to us? So in the past buildings have been given to groups on a peppercorn rent, a pound a year, and two years later they say well the roof is falling in, can you mend the roof, or the boiler is broken, can you fix it?
"We are not in a position to be able to do that. We want to make sure, given our restrained money, we maximise what we can do for our young people in the city and we know taking away their youth and play centres is going to be a detriment."
He explained selling an asset to a community group for anything below market value would "have to be based on a business case" because to give them a building without an assessment of their ability to cope with it is like a noose round the neck." The leader of the Labour council emphasised there must be a balance between an asset's social value and its monetary value.
Sam Gardiner, the chairman of the committee and councillor for Bulwell Forest, raised fears over multi-national companies buying up local assets. He said: "When we start to look at asset disposal, so we are selling stuff and getting rid of assets, where is the protection for the local economy?
"So you could have, could you not, you are selling a community centre, there could be a big multi-national corporation in London that comes into the city, buys that building and then rents it out to the local community group and in essence what that is doing is extracting wealth out of our local economy and taking it down the M1 right into London."
Councillor Mellen said often assets are not sold to big corporations and replied: "When we sell something to a business you would ask a number of questions, how many jobs is it going to provide, are they going to be protected for local people. So those kinds of questions are there but we have to balance that with getting the most we can.
"We are in a situation where we can't mess around with getting less money than we need because otherwise we cannot do the other things we need to do around our city. We need to have assets coming in to fulfil the capital programme and finish work already started."
Ms Jenkins added: "By law we have to reach that best consideration so we would have to get that market value and be able to demonstrate that, and if there are any social outputs that we can take those as part of that is we have to be able to monetise it. That is one of he challenges we face."
Currently the council is taking steps to balance its books, following the appointment of an improvement and assurances board which reports to the Government, and a large portion of this will be achieved through the selling of assets. Should the authority fail to keep the board and Government happy, costly and unelected commissioners may be sent in to take over and make changes without consultation.
Five children's centres are set for closure. These are in Aspley (Amesbury Circus), Aspley (Minver Crescent), Bilborough, Bulwell and Sneinton.
On top of this three libraries are also facing closure, while the old central library building in Angel Row is in the process of being sold for significant capital receipt. Such cuts have been under intense opposition, including from local campaign group Save Nottingham Libraries and businesses which face being shifted out of industrial estates which have also been declared surplus.
Councillor Merlita Bryan, for Hyson Green and the Arboretum, further emphasised the impact on communities which are already struggling. She added: "One aim for the council is to make money and assets to make as much money as possible, which I do understand, but then you have got the community which is losing.
"It doesn't go down well for us as a council. That's all they can see, all we are doing is selling, selling, selling. And that makes it difficult for us as a city. We have got to look at helping some of the community group, we have got to just for the sake of our next generation coming up."
Councillor Mellen responded: "We are in a situation, without getting political, where we have been starved of funds and this is the way, and this is why we are going through this process with the children's centres, we are not just selling them, we are offering them out to groups and maybe we should have done that more in the past... but what we are doing now is trying to have that use first and to allow that."
