Bankrupt Labour Council Loses £12 million of Public Money in Property Sell-off

Labour Councillors Robbing YOUR Money

by Andrew Pope, former Southampton City Councillor 2011-2019, 11th August 2024

Andrew Pope, Independent Southampton City Councillor
on BBC South Today

Labour loses £12 million of public money in property sell-off

In late 2022, I investigated and reported on the Labour-run Council, led then by now MP Councillor Satvir Kaur, on their sell-off of Council-owned land on the cheap for "affordable housing".

That report mentioned a Cabinet meeting of 20th December 2022, a meeting which Councillor Kaur chaired as Leader of the Council. 

At that meeting, Kaur's Cabinet approved a report where "best value" for sales of land for the "Affordable Housing Framework" would not be achieved.

Councils are required by law to achieve "best value" for the taxpayer when selling off public assets. But in that report, this requirement was sidelined in the recommendations to Cabinet.

This was in stark contrast to the requirement for "best value" being stated to be adhered to by the previous Conservative Administration of the Council in a report written by Council officers and presented to Cabinet in March 2022 and also in the presentation on the "Affordable Housing Framework" created by Council officers at the time.

It appears that Kaur's Labour Administration seemed to have mysteriously changed the policy, after Kaur became Leader in May 2022. Best value became not best value.

There is now evidence that Labour have not achieved "best value" in the sale of another taxpayer-owned asset.

Questions were raised last month by opposition councillors on Southampton City Council about the sale of One Guildhall Square. 

Let's look at the sums.

The freehold of land for the building was bought by the Council for £25 million.

Outrageously, the Council's own accounts show that it was sold for HALF of that amount, for £12.75 million net of VAT.

Far from being an investment, this is a massive £12.25 million LOSS for the taxpayer.

Yet Labour Councillor Simon Letts (the councillor we exposed in the Echo as saying he did not care about the Arts Complex overspends - see Echo front page from April 2018) defended the decision. 

 

Councillor Simon Letts "doesn't want to know why"
Arts Centre Faces Millions Over-Spend, Echo April 2018

 

Incredibly, Council officers had still claimed that "best value" was achieved in the sale of One Guildhall Square. How can that be? It is not true. Council officers are being forced by Labour to defend the indefensible.

The Labour Administration's policy of a fire sale, or a sell-off, call it what you will, has been set.

Do not forget that the Council is effectively bankrupt and having to sell, borrow or make cuts to balance the books. Against normal prudential restrictions, Government has allowed them to sell off the family silver to pay the bills.

This is a bankruptcy which Councillor Satvir Kaur said when Leader was a "lie", despite all the evidence contrary to her ignorant and incompetent leadership of the Council.

Kaur remains a Councillor, despite being elected to Parliament on 4th July 2024. You would have thought that she would have resigned in shame. But she has not.

What damage could she do if she got her hands on national public assets? The mind boggles.

Meanwhile, it will not be reassuring anybody that the Chair of the Council's Audit Committee is none other than Labour Councillor Steve Leggett, who presided over the bankruptcy of the Council as Cabinet Member for Finance.

Talk about Labour councillors marking their own homework!