Southampton City Council is looking to sell off some of its assets in a move to help the authority become financially “sustainable” amid a £150m medium-term budget shortfall.
A recent report by the authority outlined that an asset development and disposal programme will be reviewing the council’s commercial and investment assets to see which are best to retain and which could be sold off.
The report highlighted that the programme could generate c.£85m of capital receipts from asset disposals over the next two years.
Southampton’s move to sell off authority assets is designed to support and fund the council’s transformation plans to put it back on a financially “sustainable” footing, the report explained.
S114 risk
In July last year, Southampton commenced “informal discussions” with the government over its combined budget shortfall of almost £150m over the medium term.
At the time, the authority also warned that a section 114 notice was still a “risk”, but stated that the council was attempting to achieve a “sustainable financial footing”.
Shortly after this, the authority announced it had established an Improvement Board to help the council restore its finances. Appointed board members included Theresa Grant (who has been elected as chair), Rob Whiteman, Peter Marland, Trevor Doughty, Craig McArdle and representatives of the council’s cabinet and its chief executive Mike Harris.
On top of this, in an October medium term financial strategy, the council identified savings of £16.6m, which brought its 2023/24 budget pressure to £14.1m.
However, Southampton warned that it still faces budget shortfalls over the medium term with forecasts of £37.8m in 2024/25, £44.9m in 2025/26 and £52.4m in 2026/27. Hence, the authority has submitted an application for exceptional financial support from the government.
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