Peterborough City Council sold tens of millions of pounds worth of assets in the past nine years in order to repay debt.
Results from a Freedom of Information request received in December 2024, recently shared with the Local Democracy Reporting Service, revealed that £49,663,112.90 of council assets were sold since July 2016.
A spokesperson for the council said that money received as a result of asset sales is used to "repay its debt balances, therefore reducing the cost of borrowing (interest)".
They added: "In addition, these receipts are classed as capital (being asset disposals) and therefore cannot be used to fund the revenue expenditure (day to day services)."
Peterborough City Council provided a list of the ten highest asset sales since July 2016, but did not confirm who they were sold to and for how much due to commercial sensitivities.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has included prices of each sale where it was publicly available.
9. Peterborough City Council asset sales
Details of the sale of The Avenue (Avenue Farm), Willow Drove, Newborough could not be found on Land Registry or other public records. Photo: Google
10. Peterborough City Council asset sales
Peterborough City Council sold land at the Hereward Cross Shopping Centre in 2023. Details of the sale figure could not be found on Land Registry or other public records. However, a report at the time suggested that a "mutually acceptable price" had been agreed with a successful bidder of the site's leasehold interest. The leaseholder at the time marketed their leasehold interest for sale at £6.3 million on the open market. Photo: Google