Swindon Brough Council is looking to sell off some of the commercial properties it owns, and hopes to make just over £21million.

But members of the public aren’t yet allowed to know which ones, nor how much the council might receive in return for each one.

Members of the council’s ruling Labour cabinet will hear a report from Rob Richards, Euclid Street’s head of property assets, setting out the case for selling some of the properties it owns and lets in return for commercial rent.

Those properties include shop units, office buildings, industrial buildings and even farms.

But these are being kept as private and confidential papers – but the report does say they provide an annual rent of £1.4m. If they are all sold the council could hope to make £21.3m after fees to agents.

The publicly available report says: “The properties are all leased to business tenants on commercial terms.

"The lease lengths are for a variety of years, but the majority are long ground leases with one multi-let industrial estate being on a number of relatively short leases to a variety of businesses.

“The council’s appointed commercial property consultants, Hartnell Taylor Cook have been instructed to inspect the properties and advise on their saleability including their recommended method of disposal and the anticipated sale price they believe to be achievable.”

The council would receive the money from the sale of the freehold of the properties on completion.

The anticipated price the council could expect to receive is also set out in a private and confidential annex.

This is to ensure the council can get the best price possible in any sale

The report acknowledges that selling the properties would reduce the long-term income the council receives in rent.

But it says that when the council borrows money it must pay interest, which also creates pressure on the day-to-day revenue budget, and that interest is higher on shorter-lived assets, such as IT equipment or vehicles.

It suggests: “An element of the receipts generated from the sale of the properties should used to fund shorter life assets in place of additional council borrowing, which would save debt charges and fully offset the rental losses.”

“Utilising £11.3m of the capital receipt to replace borrowing on short-life assets would save £1.7m per year in debt charges.”

The report says that’s a saving on the revenue budget of £300,000 – the difference between the rent received at £1.4m and the debt charges of £1.7m – and there would still be £10m left over.

The cabinet meeting starts at 6pm on Wednesday September 11. Members of the public are entitled to attend