Slough Council will not 'rule out' sale of Observatory House

Staff members were moved from their former home St Marks Place in Bath Road into Observatory House in Windsor Road back in 2019 to accommodate the authority’s employee cohort, which stands at over 1,000.

But financial woes of £174m by 2025 and the council’s borrowing levels reaching a staggering £760m has forced the authority to seek permission to sell over half of its £1.2bn-worth of assets.

Two damning reports have been published over Slough’s governance and finances. But a paper produced by Salford’s former chief executive Jim Taylor criticised the current HQ’s digital infrastructure.

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He stated: “The Wifi and in some cases, phone signal, do not work effectively in the new council HQ; children’s social workers have been unable to work from the new building for many months.”

At a media briefing, council leader James Swindlehurst they are “ruling nothing out and ruling nothing in” in terms of reviewing every single building and land the authority owns, which stands at 6,700.

This includes Observatory House, but Cllr Swindlehurst stressed they won’t be disposing of it in the “very near future” as they are looking to sell off non-operational assets first.

He said: “It might be an asset well down the road we will have to look at but we are taking our steps to do this in a rational and organised way, and it will be non-operational assets we will be disposing of in the short-term rather than the building that is the headquarters.”

Staff moved into Observatory House in 2019

He added: “If the advice that we receive from the external firms that we are using to assess all our assets recommends something different to this building, we will take that with an open mind.”

According to Cllr Swindlehurst, the business case to buy Observatory House was to lease the top two floors which would have funded the borrowing costs to pay for the building.

However, discussions have stalled in tempting businesses in the HQ, but talks could be kickstarted.

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He also defended the purchase, maintaining it is a ‘fit for purpose’ building and was needed to meet and accommodate their staffing numbers and needs.

The leader also said the issues are “fixable” and just need to deploy some resources to rectify those problems, but some have already been addressed such as installing Microsoft Teams for staff to use.

While Cllr Swindlehurst did not reveal what assets will be sold off, he said the £100m-worth of out of borough assets, such as the Odeon in Basingstoke, is “easier” to sell because the yields the council thought the buildings would bring were not as “generous” members were led to believe.