Slough Borough Council to sell off AkzoNoble site

Multinational company AkzoNoble stopped paint production at the site in 2016

A debt-ridden council is set to sell a major housing site to help fill its financial black hole.

Plans to build 1,000 homes at the AkzoNoble paint factory site in Wexham Road, Slough, were approved in 2020.

Slough Borough Council bought the site to provide more affordable homes.

However, a report revealed the authority was supposed to spend at least £250m on the scheme but it did not have a "clear idea" how it would pay it off.

The council - which needs to sell up to £600m-worth of its properties to reduce its £760m borrowing debt - can no longer commit to the project and the site will therefore be "briskly" sold off.

Subject to planning consent, a new data centre instead of homes will be built at the site, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

A mix of one to four bedroom flats were planned for the site

The price tag remains unknown, but borough council leader James Swindlehurst said the offer was "probably the single biggest beneficial transaction" he had ever seen.

He hinted the sale would make about "a quarter" of its capitalisation direction requirement and it would move the council "more rapidly to a better financial position".

Mr Swindlehurst said other developments - such as the up to 1,600 homes site at Queensmere shopping centre - would mitigate this loss.

The paint factory was previously sold to real estate company Panattoni, but earlier this year the borough council bought the southern part of the brownfield site for £38m in a bid to build new social and affordable homes.