Farmland near Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station is being auctioned off by Nottingham City Council because it has become a “serious ongoing management risk”.
The land is being sold off as part of efforts to raise money as the authority continues to battle ‘critical’ financial problems.
The council had leased the land in Long Eaton, known as Trent Farm, to Cemex UK, a concrete supplier.
It had been used by the firm for gravel extraction, but the land has since been restored to a number of open water ponds.
“[The land] represents a serious ongoing management risk to the property management team as they are now simply extensive areas of open water,” council delegated decision documents say.
“It is not possible to prevent people entering the site, and the property management team and our insurance team have recommended the disposal of the liability now that the Cemex lease has expired and we are responsible for the property.”
Around 44 acres have already been auctioned off by the council in December last year. The land was sold for £300,000.
The two remaining plots will now be put up for auction by the authority.
In a bid to reduce its overall debt, the council has been selling off any land or property it deems ‘surplus’ as part of a voluntary debt reduction policy, adopted shortly after the collapse of Robin Hood Energy.
The need to sell off property then “significantly increased” following the declaration of effective bankruptcy in November 2023.
Money from asset sales is now being used to ‘pay back’ up to £65m in Exceptional Financial Support (EFS), granted by the Government to help the council set a balanced budget in 2023/24 and 2024/25.
Further Exceptional Financial Support is expected to be needed so the council can set a balanced budget over the next two years.
The council’s budget gap for the year beginning April 2025 still sits at around £23.4m, and there is an overall cumulative budget gap over the next four years of £56.8m.
• Nottingham City Council slashes budget gap by over 60% for next four years
To help tackle the ongoing financial problems, the authority has a target to sell £141.4m-worth of property assets between 2024 and 2028.
Some of this property includes farms and farmland purchased a number of years ago.
The farms it owns are “legacy ownerships” and date back before the current unitary organisation was formed in 1998.
• Nottingham city £11 million bus and tram concessionary scheme to be approved
“We have no involvement in the day-to-day operation of the farms; we are the landlord to whom the farmers pay rent, as with any other commercially let asset,” a council spokesperson previously said.
“A significant number of farms have been sold off already, and as part of an ongoing structured review of all our commercial properties, we will be considering which assets it is appropriate for the council to dispose of in the future.”
