Liberal Democrat County Councillors have expressed significant concerns after it was revealed that Surrey County Council has not spent any of the income derived from its £298 million commercial property portfolio on council services.

Surrey County Council, either itself or through its wholly owned subsidiary company Halsey Garton, has purchased 23 commercial properties, 65% of which are situated outside of the county across England. The total amount invested is £298,073,000.

And the County Council has been transferring the rental income from these commercial properties (£3.8m) into its Revolving Infrastructure & Investment Fund, which is used to support the purchasing of commercial property, despite one of the central tenets of the County Council’s original Investment Strategy being to “generate additional income for the council that can be used to provide additional financial support for the delivery of functions and services”.

​These transfers have taken place despite the Conservative Cabinet Member for Property & Business Services stating: “We also have an additional need to generate an income from our strategy if we are to have any hope of raising enough money to fund the services our residents need.”

Liberal Democrat County Councillors are deeply concerned that none of the income derived from this extensive property investment portfolio has so far been used to support council services when the County Council is proposing millions of pounds of cuts to services in this financial year and have called for this income to be used to support the County Council’s services.