Plans for Stafford Borough Council to buy its Civic Centre have moved forward – despite the authority facing the axe in the coming years.
Members of the borough council gave the green light to buy the Riverside base at a special meeting on Tuesday (March 18).
The four-storey building, which also houses other organisations including NHS services, is currently leased to the council. The lease has more than 50 years left to run and rent is expected to increase during that time.
The council will be able to bid for grants to make the building more environmentally friendly and reduce running costs if it owns the Civic Centre, the authority has said. But the council’s own future in the coming years is uncertain as it faces abolition as part of local government reorganisation plans announced by the national Government in December.
The current two-tier council system in Staffordshire and other parts of England is set to be replaced by unitary authorities. Stafford Borough Council members backed an initial proposal to form a southern Staffordshire authority, covering six current districts and boroughs, at Tuesday’s extraordinary council meeting.
The discussions and decision making on the proposed Civic Centre purchase were held behind closed doors however because of commercial sensitivities. Speaking after the meeting council leader Aidan Godfrey said the lease, which was originally agreed in 1974, tied the council’s hands and would be an expensive burden with council taxpayers footing the bill of unnecessary costs which the authority would have no control over in the future.
He added: “We have looked very closely at the figures to see if purchasing the building was the right thing to do. And our decision was based on investing in the future.
“We want to protect taxpayers’ money and if we were to own the building we would avoid unnecessary costs. We would also be able to bid for investment that will reduce the carbon footprint of the Civic Centre – and help improve its energy efficiency therefore providing a reduction in long-term running costs.”
2 comments
Eyes on the Fleece
The irony is impossible to ignore.
Stafford Borough Council wants to buy the freehold of its Civic Centre to escape the long-term costs and restrictions of leasehold.
Yet across Stafford Borough, thousands of residents are trapped in leasehold and fleecehold schemes, with no real control over their own homes.
Over the past decade, developers have filled Stafford with new developments/estates built on broken promises.
Homes are sold as “freehold,” but buyers are tied into paying annual maintenance charges for public open spaces, play areas, and on some developments, the roads, cycle paths, drainage, and lighting.
Charges that are uncapped and unregulated, paid to private management companies.
The so-called “freehold” comes with hidden contracts that most would never agree to if they knew the full truth.
Residents are lied to, misled, and often told the land will be adopted later.
This is mis-selling on an industrial scale.
Developers take the profits and move on.
Councils collect full council tax and take Section 106 payments, which are meant to cover the cost of new infrastructure in the area, for their own plans.
But instead of adopting public areas, they leave them in the hands of private management companies.
Residents pay council tax for services they no longer receive, and then pay again through service charges to unaccountable private firms.
Leaseholders have few rights.
Fleecehold freeholders often have none at all.
People on new estates are being charged more for fewer services than those living in older parts of the borough.
It is discrimination in all but name.
Now the council admits that leasehold is poor value and says it must own its own freehold to protect itself from future costs.
I hope they are buying a true freehold, or they will find themselves being fleeced too.
If leasehold is such a bad deal, why is it acceptable to abandon residents to something even worse?
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill 2024 does not come close to fixing this scandal.
Fleecehold must not simply be restricted.
It must be abolished.
Not just for new estates, but for those already suffering under it.
Councils must adopt public areas!
This is not just a case of unfairness.
It is systemic dishonesty.
It is exploitation, happening in plain sight, allowed by councils, developers, and governments of all political colours.
The fleecehold model is laying the foundations for the slums of the future.
It is unaffordable. It is unsustainable. It is unacceptable.
The truth is simple.
Councils benefit. Developers profit. Residents lose.
We are being sold a lie.
It must end.
#Fleecehold
#unadoptedestates
https://www.homeownersrights.net/
Robert Jones
Would it not make sense to await the outcome of any changes that may be imposed on Staffordshire through the likely merging of local authorities?
Surely buying the building now in the face of such potential massive change is not sensible.