THE councillor in charge of Dorset’s massive land and properties holdings, some of which it no longer has a use for, says the authority will never agree to a ‘fire sale’.

Weymouth councillor Tony Ferrari says that while some councils have been considering selling assets at less than their value to balance their books Dorset Council is not in that position.

"We're extremely resistant to fire sales - we'd walk away from a transaction rather than sell below value," he said.

But he admits that some disposals, or changes in use, do proceed slower than he would like – often because of a shortage of suitably qualified staff to deal with the transactions.

Cllr Ferrari told councillors that in many cases the authority was unable to increase rents at inflation level for some of the properties it owns because of historic contracts which limit rises. He said for hotels alone there were 25 different contract frameworks.

Despite the difficulties rent reviews in the coming year are expected to bring the council an extra £200,000 with a target of adding at least £500,000 to the council budget from asset disposals: Balanced against this is an expected additional cost of £300,000 for utility bills for council-owned buildings along with routine maintenance and repairs.

Among the council’s portfolio are seafront hotels in Weymouth, thousands of acres of farmland and industrial estates. It also owns almost countless parcels of land, some only a few metres square.

Around £6million a year comes into the council each year from around 350 commercial letting agreements the council has on its properties and land.

Notable among the council’s agreements so far is the leasing of the former council headquarters in South Walks, Dorchester, which is now being used by the NHS for outpatients, bringing in around a third of a million pounds in rental each year.

In Blandford the former district council headquarters has been sold, for an undisclosed sum, and is currently being developed for housing, Still to be finally determined is the future of the former borough council officers at North Quay, Weymouth and the former East Dorset district council headquarters at Furzehill, where talks continue about a housing project on the site.

Cllr Ferrari said that when the new council came into being, more than three years ago, it had nineteen offices, but now has seven.

He says the future of more than 130 council-owned sites are actively being pursued but progress, on occasions, was being hampered by a national shortage of suitable qualified staff to deal with the transactions. Not all will be sold, some are expected to be re-purposed for other uses.

Cllr Ferrari told a scrutiny committee meeting that he has the budget to employ more staff, either in-house staff or agency, but was unable to spend to the ceiling amount because there were simply not adequate professionals to be found.

Finance director Aidan Dunn told the meeting that more  than £5million in capital receipts already received by the council from sales was awaiting Government approval to be used as revenue. He said there was a low risk that it would not be agreed but had yet to be finally signed off.