Newport city council has become the latest local authority to launch an asset disposal strategy to fund regeneration and cut costs.
A review of the Welsh council’s strategic assets could lead to the sale of public sector property worth as much as £50m.
Newport said it had yet to decide how much of its 400-plus property portfolio to dispose of, but it could be as much as 25%.
Money raised from the asset sales will be used to help fund its £20m bid to kick-start regeneration and entice private-sector investors into the city.
Sheila Davies, the council’s corporate director, said: “We are currently completely reassessing all our strategic assets and seriously looking at either packaging them together to help regeneration or selling to raise funds.”
Peter Graham, investment director at Cardiff-based Stephenson & Alexander, said: “A portfolio of this type could be worth up to £50m. I would expect there would be investors interested in taking a shared ownership in such a portfolio covering a mix of properties.”
Davies said the council had rethought plans for its regeneration programme after losing Modus as its development partner on the £200m Friars Walk shopping centre in 2009. The council appointed Queensberry as preferred developer for a smaller 390,000 sq ft scheme in May last year.
“We need to remove the obstacles out of the way now to allow serious and investment to go ahead,” she added.
Click below to hear Sheila Davies talking about the city council’s property review and its new vision for regeneration.
