Council sells £50m worth of assets to repay debts

Peterborough City Council sold Weston Homes Stadium back to Peterborough United in 2021

A football stadium, shopping centre and farmland were among a council's most lucrative sales as it tried to repay its debts.

Peterborough City Council made £50m from asset sales over the past decade, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

The authority has more than £500m of debt, which it said was the result of funding new roads, schools and regeneration projects.

It sold Weston Homes Stadium back to Peterborough United in 2021 and sold land at the Hereward Cross Shopping Centre in 2023.

The stadium and surrounding land was bought by the authority for £8.4m in 2010. The council sold it back to Posh for just over £6m.

The club said it was given a £1.25m discount in recognition of its "economic and social benefit to the city" and £2.8m investment into the Allia Business Centre which formed part of the sale.

The leasehold at Hereward Cross, which housed Poundland and the Sir Henry Royce pub, was sold for a "mutually acceptable price", the council said.

The leasehold at Hereward Cross was sold for a "mutually acceptable price", the council said

The council's most recent documents said it faced a £23m budget gap for 2025-26.

It said asset disposals cannot be used to fund day-to-day services and were instead used to "repay its debt balances, therefore reducing the cost of borrowing (interest)".

It said the cost of servicing external borrowing was about £38m per year.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the other assets which fetched the best prices were:

• Newborough Rural Estate

• Avenue Farm in Newborough

• Turves Farm in Newborough

• Land at Northminster

• Eardley Grange Farm and Hill Farm

• Land at Bishops Road

• Fletton Mills (lots seven and eight) at Fletton Quays

• Whitworth Mill

The council's budget document said its "debt levels compare high to other unitary authorities, whilst at the same time our reserves levels compare low".

It said it could be left with as little as £5m at the end of 2024/25 in its general reserve fund and just more than £14m overall in its savings.