Selling the family silver
Much has been said this week about Labour’s proposed great asset sell-off – flogging the Tote bookmakers, the Dartford crossing, the Channel Tunnel rail link, the student loan book and the government’s stake in a consortium which helps create enriched uranium. (Let’s hope they don’t sell that last one to Iran).
The Tories are apparently all in favour but say it doesn’t go far enough – but Vince Cable got it right when he said that a depressed market was not a good time to be selling anything. He also pointed out that the previous Tory government had sold off nearly everything worth selling, so this really does amount to scraping the bottom of the barrel. It was Vince that called these proposals selling the family silver.
Both Labour and the Tories seem keen for local government to assist with the great asset sell off. One politician I heard on the radio was rubbing his hands over the £200 billion of assets that councils apparently own and could sell. Let’s see, what do we have in Wokingham Borough? Well, the big ticket items are things like: schools, leisure centres, residential homes, parks and playing fields, car parks, council houses and the council’s own offices.
When you exclude the completely impractical or deeply undesirable, there really isn’t a lot left on that list. In the long term it might be sensible to consider the council’s main office site in Shute End – it is a prime site, and the council could probably find somewhere cheaper to go to. And maybe Rose Street car park in the centre of Wokingham could be used to help the town centre regeneration.
But parks and playing fields: Elms Field anyone? Though, hang on a minute, maybe the recent refusal by the Tories to allow the football club to relocate to Cantley Park after all suddenly makes sense…….
As for council houses, both the Labour government and the Tories before them (and still, as far as I can tell) seem hell-bent on keeping a system that forces councils to sell off their council housing.
To bring in another local note, plugging holes in finances temporarily by selling off assets is a tactic that the Tories have used in Wokingham. They sold the freehold of Woodley shopping centre, for example. They made a bit of money – but the company they sold it to made much more when they sold it on shortly afterwards. And in getting rid of it, the Tories also got rid of very useful rental income. They also sold off the site of the new police station in Wokingham and some other shops and GP surgeries.
So has this worked as a tactic? Well, maybe briefly in the short term, but after that, no. Wokingham is still struggling. And any more disposals of council assets are going to be more difficult politically and take longer to sort out.
If selling of the last few bits of silver is really how Labour and the Tories see the way forward for local government, not only is the market depressed but so am I.
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