A BANKRUPT council is “very close” to selling the first wave of its land and properties to fill its financial woes.

Slough Borough Council is selling nearly half of its £1.2bn asset base in order to reduce its £680m borrowing debt and help bridge its £479m blackhole.

Its mounting financial pressure caused by too many property investments forced the local authority to declare bankruptcy in July 2021 where the government sent in commissioners to oversee its recovery.

Since then, the council has been gearing up to sell its large asset portfolio and enlisted the help of property consultants Avison Young to value their land and properties.

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Lead commissioner Max Caller said Slough is “very close” to being in a position to sell off the first wave of its assets where the first sale deals are “starting to come to fruition”.

It’s not clear what assets are a part of this first wave but the four out-of-borough assets, such as the Odeon Cinema in Basingstoke and the Wickes store in Wolverhampton, are among the first to go.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mr Caller said: “We have been actively marketing a number of properties, particularly the out-of-borough properties.

“Some of them are attracting quite a lot of interest. Not all of them are resulting in bids, but that’s the property market as it stands at the moment.

“We anticipate the first few properties coming through will do better than the valuation and we’re very close to being able to report to members on the first asset sales.”

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Any asset sales above one million pounds have to be signed off by cabinet members where a paper could come to a special cabinet meeting to speed up the process.

However, Mr Caller said some of the deals are “difficult” because of the “particular status” of the tenant and the lease.

He explained: “It’s easier to sell a property when you’ve got a good tenant on a long lease with a steady rental coming in.

“When you’ve got things coming towards the end of their lease, it’s more uncertain. So, deciding whether or not to wait until you can renegotiate a new lease and then sell it or sell it with the potential of the tenant moving out. All those things are standard property stuff.”

This comes after the commissioners’ published their first report on the local authority. They said they were “not confident” Slough will be able to sell its assets in time and may require more “unprecedented” government support.