From the bbc article.
Personally don't think councils should own these assets in the first place. Why should a council own and operate a stately home garden or a museum or be a business/office property landlord?
A council's job is to run local services - waste collection, road maintenance, schools etc.
They shouldn't be owning (and the taxpayer paying to maintain) 800 year old Tudor manor houses. It's not efficient.
Maybe because it reduces the amount we pay in taxes, and traditionally the average council has looked ahead and thought about how a change will affect the people in the area much more than some investment group based in America or wherever whose only interest is how much they can get in the short term?
Our council sold off much of it's properties in the 90's, it's been renting many of them back ever since, meaning that they've paid out far more in rent than they got in the sales...
Also things like selling off carparks, council operated ones tend to be far more friendly to the user with things like PCN processes that are actually somewhat open and where the council has to abide by the law or get a load of bad press that affects them at the election, sell them off and you end up with either private operators who want every penny they can get, or the car park getting turned into a block of flats with no parking either for the flats or anyone else.
Same sort of thing with leisure facilities, councils used to own and operate a lot of things like leisure centres and swimming pools and would do things like discounts (or free use) for the local schools and swimming clubs, now a lot of them have been sold off, given a lick of paint and you either need to be a member to use them, or pay several times as much in real terms compared to what they used to cost.
It's almost like the private sector isn't actually always the best to be trusted with running things that the community relies on, and that it's a good idea for the council to run it's own facilities rather than rent them.
Also re Stately homes, often they were part of the property portfolios that used to be used in running the area, or were left to the council on the condition they should be either used for the public good, or open to the public.
Around my way there is a bit of a fuss that a couple of Heritage/Stately homes/gardens that have for the last 100+ years been open to the public have been sold to new owners who have closed them off, so historic buildings and gardens that people have been used to visiting for generations are now behind a closed door.
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And things like commercial properties, it's in the councils interest to keep the rents on them affordable so that they are occupied and businesses can bring in money to the area. Commercial landlords would, it would appear, often rather force a viable business out of the property and have it empty than accept a "lower than market rate" rent that was rather too optimistic For one thing if the council owns the property the rent is going into the council funds to help pay for things locally, and if the council is willing to look past the quarterly profits (something many commercial operators aren't) the local area gains from having more businesses operating, so the council may not be "maximising the profit" in rent, but more than compensating by having more local businesses paying rates, employing people and putting money back into the local economy.
www.bbc.co.uk
