Secret list of 79 community buildings Peterborough City Council could sell 'will be made public next year'

A secret list of community buildings Peterborough City Council (PCC) is considering selling off will be made public next year, its new administration has said.

Speaking at a full council meeting this month, deputy leader Cllr John Howard (Peterborough First, Hargate and Hempsted) said that committing to publishing the list is part of his group’s “push for more transparency”.

The list, which is currently unavailable to the press and public, was drawn up under the previous Conservative administration and contains 79 council-owned buildings which could be sold or repurposed.

As well as 36 community centres and 17 children’s centres, it contains 10 libraries, seven leisure facilities and nine buildings marked ‘other’.

The council has previously indicated that it did not intend to make the full list public at any point, but Cllr Howard has now suggested that this will happen after its current period of engagement with the assets’ users and stakeholders.

“I know that [council] officers anticipate that updates will be provided in January to scrutiny and February to cabinet,” he said, “which will clearly set out each site under review and the proposals being brought forward for consideration with the expectation that this information will not be exempt.”

“This is part of the Peterborough First administration’s push for more transparency with the process,” he added.

PCC’s Growth, Resources and Communities Scrutiny Committee – sometimes abbreviated to ‘scrutiny’ – is due to meet next on 30th January.

Cllr Howard has previously said that his administration – which replaced the previous Conservative administration in early November – is “slowing down the pace” of the assets review process to ensure proper engagement with stakeholders.

The Peterborough First group has come under pressure from other council groups which support its minority administration to do so; the Liberal Democrats in particular have repeatedly called for the process to be made more transparent.

Their leader, Cllr Christian Hogg (Lib Dems, Paston and Walton) also secured a promise that all individual assets facing sale will be debated in public at cabinet meetings, with no decisions made behind-the-scenes.

But unease over the project clearly remains among some councillors, with Cllr Samantha Hemraj (Labour, East) saying at the full council meeting that “once those assets are gone, we’ll never get them back”.

Addressing Eleanor Kelly, the chair of PCC’s independent improvement board which has advised it to undertake an assets review, she added: “Where do we go next when trying to improve the budgets, because we’re not going to get any more funding from government?”

Ms Kelly agreed that selling assets is “a very difficult balancing act”, but added that “you’re very limited in your way forward”.

“It’s too expensive for you to continue to borrow,” she said, “therefore you have to realise assets or maximise income that’s coming in from outside”.

PCC continues to face significant financial challenges, with a projected budget gap of £6.2m next year and its reserves – or savings – projected to almost halve over the next three years.

The council now also faces huge pressures over the long-term provision of one of its largest assets, the Regional Pool, which it has been told would need £11m to re-open and remain viable over the next decade.

Council leaders said at the meeting that PCC may look to the private sector to provide a pool in future and also that hydrotherapy provision will also be considered during this process.

PCC stresses that no decisions about any of its buildings listed in its assets review have yet been made.