The council is trying to raise £6m by selling off a series of its commercial properties in the borough but doubts over the plan have now emerged, reports Nick Clark, Local Democracy Reporter
Plans to sell off a series of health centre buildings in Barking and Dagenham may not be worth the cost, a leading councillor has said.
The council is considering selling four buildings housing health centres around the borough, under proposals approved by leading Labour councillors yesterday (Tuesday 10th).
Labour councillor Maureen Worby – responsible for health services – said the council would “insist on protections” aimed at keeping the health centres after the buildings are sold.
However, she also questioned whether the cost of those protections would make selling the buildings worthwhile.
Barking and Dagenham Council plans to sell off some of its commercial properties in the borough in an effort to raise £6million.
These include buildings housing health centres at Five Elms, Markyate Road, Porters Avenue and Queens Road.
Council papers say the town hall would “want some certainty” that any sale “will not result in the loss of health services”.
They say this is a “low risk” as they are all let to the NHS on long leases, which the new owner would have little opportunity to change.
However, Cllr Worby said she would want to add “tight” legal conditions and covenants on the buildings ensuring the health services would stay.
She suggested that the cost of doing this could mean that that “what we’re going to get for selling off the sites is minimal”.
Cllr Worby said: “There is no way that we’re going to lose any more sites in this borough that are health provision.
“There’ll have to be a very compelling case, because I would want something so tight that we’d end up getting peanuts if we sold the site.”
She added: “It wouldn’t be worth all the money that these lawyers would charge us to sell it off, so we might as well keep it.”
The council has published a list of 42 properties in the borough that it wants to sell. These include several parades of shops, as well as the health centres.
All the properties are let out to their occupiers on long leases, which would likely continue after a sale.
Town hall bosses hope that 19 of these could be sold by March next year for an estimated £3.2m.
These include several shops in Goresbrook Road, Ripple Road, Becontree Avenue, Green Lane and Church Street in Dagenham. They also include a former depot at 788 Dagenham Road.
Proposals say the council has selected these buildings as they are “underperforming assets where the council struggles to recoup its management costs” and which bring in rents of less than £10,000 a year.
They say this income would be “outweighed” by the amount the council could sell the properties for.
The remaining 23 properties include the four health centres, and could be sold off in later years to bring in an estimated £2.6m.
Councils are not allowed to use money they make from property sales to fund day-to-day services, or to pay off debts, without permission from the government.
However, the money for sales can be used to pay for new property and regeneration, or to fund plans to transform council services.
Barking and Dagenham Council says that work to make itself more efficient will be partly funded by money raised from property sales.
