The government is investigating whether Peterborough Council may have broken the law by selling public spaces to help meet its running costs, in response to findings by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

As part of a major investigation revealing the mass sell-off of public property by cash-strapped councils, published on Monday in partnership with HuffPost UK, we have discovered that Peterborough Council appears to have used nearly £23 million from selling property to help balance its books for the past four years. While councils are allowed to use money from selling property for certain purposes, they are not allowed to use it simply to plug holes in their budgets.

Of immediate concern are the council’s plans for the coming financial year which are due to be approved by councillors at a meeting tomorrow. At the moment the proposed budget is reliant on using another £10.6 million of money made from selling assets just to break even.

If found to be in breach of the rules, the planned spending could be disallowed and the Conservative-led council, which serves a population of almost 200,000, would have to find another way of bridging the gap as a matter of urgency.



There are fears Peterborough could follow the same path as its neighbour Northamptonshire, which last February became the first council in nearly 20 years to ban all but essential expenditure after it effectively ran out of money. A government investigation found Northamptonshire council had breached regulations by selling off assets to balance its books in the years leading to its financial collapse.