FOI request reveals a £10 m valuation on sale of parks.

A Freedom of Information request by Caroline Ellis has revealed the Council expect tom gain £10 million by selling off parks.

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Following your alerting us to the proposed disposal of park and open spaces, I put in a Freedom of Information Request for a list of the 27 spaces and an estimate of the receipts from their sale.

As you know, the list has now been published on the council website and this was the answer to the receipts question:

“At this stage the receipts are only estimated as full feasibility work has not been undertaken. Furthermore, in order to ensure any future marketing exercise is not compromised, it would not be prudent to disclose individual site valuations which could influence and constrain future offers. However, I can confirm that should the Council dispose of all the sites on the list it is estimated that the receipts would be expected to produce a sum of circa £10m.”

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Our expectation is that this will predominantly be derived from the sale of the large park at Old Farm Park East. Doesn’t seem much when you consider how many houses are going to be likely squeezed on to the site.

We also can’t see how just £10m is going to secure the future of all the other parks. Undoubtedly, if the Council get away with this sell off of the ‘family silver’, they will argue they need to sell more open space in the future.

In the meantime we will continue to oppose the sell off of our open spaces.

Large park at risk of development. Houses or open space?