AN OPPOSITION leader has warned Slough is “not out of the woods” yet despite the massive sale of a large industrial site.

The cash-strapped Slough Borough Council was originally fearing it will have to make a £762m capitalisation request to government, which asks if it can use capital funds from assets sales and borrowing to fund day-to-day services, but is now predicting that figure has halved to £369m.

This is because it has sold assets early and has so far made a return from what they were bought for, such as the former Akzo Nobel site. It was bought for about £38m last year but was sold off to potentially be a data centre for a whopping £100m.

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The council, which effectively declared bankruptcy last year, needs to sell up to £600m of its properties and land in order to reduce its £760m borrowing debt.

But Conservative leader Cllr Dexter Smith (Colnbrook with Poyle) said Slough is “not of the woods” yet as this £369m assumption is based on the assets being sold on time and to the value expected.

He said at a full council meeting on Tuesday, November 22: “Let’s not get carried away here. What’s being proposed seems to be a sound basis for going forward, but it is heavily caveated and if the market is not as strong as we are experiencing at the moment, it can easily go off course.”

Meanwhile, Cllr Wayne Strutton (Con: Haymill & Lynch Hill) said not all assets are making a profit and the council “should not rely” on the former Akzo Nobel sale.

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He said: “[The former Akzo Nobel sale] does raise the question, should we be looking at the Adelphi Theatre and St Martin’s Place as potential data centre sites rather than other things because we would clear all of our debt.”

Council leader James Swindlehurst (Lab: Cippenham Green) disputed this, saying all except the Odeon Cinema in Basingstoke have made a profit and the local authority has so far raised about £150m a little over a month into the sales process.

Cllr Rob Anderson (Lab: Britwell & Northborough), lead member for financial oversight, added: “The speed in which we are transacting [the assets] is unprecedented for the large-scale of them.

“It shows that there is a demand there for our assets, especially those we have in Slough, which shows how strong this town is and always has been irrespective of the national picture of how a successful town like Slough runs.

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“The fact that our investments were largely in this town, we will benefit from that confidence in our town as we go through this process.”

He also said the council believes it will be able to reduce its £760m borrowing debt to £570m by March 2023.

Cllr Anderson also announced they have submitted the 2019/20 accounts to be examined by external auditors, who are still looking into the long overdue 2018/19 accounts.