Council Plans to Sell Off Properties Still Shrouded in Secrecy

On Thursday 14 December 2017 the Conservative Cabinet of Surrey County Council is expected to agree to enter into a Joint Venture with an external company to redevelop the Council’s own land and buildings for housing for sale and rent.

Although we welcome action being taken at long last to utilise County Council owned buildings and land which have been left vacant for many years, the proposed Joint Venture between the County Council and an external company fails to meet the needs of Surrey residents and is lacking in safeguards and is shrouded in secrecy.

In short, there is insufficient detail in the public domain to give an assurance that the County Council’s property and finances will be adequately safeguarded and that the needs of Surrey residents will be met.

We do not know if there are sufficient safeguards within the Joint Venture to adequately protect publicly owned property and finances by ensuring clear accountability as there are no elected county councillors on the Joint Venture Board, as the County Council does not have a majority on the Board and as it is unclear what the methodology will be to decide which properties are surplus to the County Council’s requirements.

There is also no mention of any consultation with local County Councillors about properties within the areas that they represent or any kind of engagement with Surrey residents.

Furthermore, with such high property prices in Surrey, genuinely affordable housing is desperately needed so that social workers, teachers and care workers can afford to live here. However, the proposal does not contain a commitment to provide additional housing units above the minimum amount of affordable housing required under planning legislation which is simply not good enough. Through this venture which uses land already in the public domain there should be a significantly higher proportion of housing that local people can genuinely afford.

Overall, this Joint Venture proposal is a missed opportunity to help meet Surrey’s need for genuinely affordable housing and to meet other needs such as for special needs places for children and housing in the community for adults with learning disabilities. This deal is for selling off County Council land and buildings for the maximum amount of money and income without adequately considering what public benefit could also accrue if the Joint Venture was structured differently.

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