Bath and North East Somerset Council is to sell off a “loss-making” office block, after not letting anyone move in for five years.
The Wansdyke Business Centre | Photo © Google Street View
The Wansdyke Business Centre in Midsomer Norton was opened in 2004 to make up for a shortage of office space for small businesses.
The council-owned building was operated by Business West until the council took over the direct running of it in 2018.
Midsomer Norton North councillor Shaun Hughes, who is one of only two tenants still based in the 19-office facility, slammed the council’s management of the office as “disastrous.”
He said: “Since then there have been no new tenants permitted to move into the building, no marketing of the available offices, no response to potential tenant requests, […], and no attempt to find a provider to continue the serviced office space — including myself.”
He attended the meeting as the ward councillor and a resident of the building, and not as a voting councillor.
Councillor Colin Blackburn, who called-in the decision to be scrutinised before a council panel, said: “This has been a five year plan to sell off the family silver.”
Council cabinet members Mark Roper and Richard Samuel who were behind the decision to sell off the centre were unavailable for the meeting, which had been called at short notice after a quarter of councillors signed a call-in of the decision.
They were represented instead by council cabinet member for council house building Tom Davies.
Mr Davies said that the council had been paying at least £25,000 a year to subsidise the business centre. This had begun in order to to make up a shortage of office space on the open market, but Mr Davies said that office space was now available in surrounding towns.
He said: “This centre has always required a subsidy.”
But he added: “There is no longer market failure that justifies that public subsidy.”
Quizzed on why new tenants had not been accepted, Mr Davies said: “My understanding is that there was a period where the leases were being regularised so that every tenant would be put on a new lease and during that period new tenants weren’t brought into the building.”
Asked by councillor Lucy Hodge if the period of regularising leases had lasted since 2018, Mr Davies confirmed that it had.
Mr Blackburn agreed the council should not be subsiding the centre but said it should not need it.
He said: “Effectively, we have run the centre down to two tenants, we have given no opportunity for new businesses to use this facility, and there’s no real data in front of us to say that these surrounding market towns really have got the provision that we believe this centre was already providing and providing well.
“There are plenty of centres like this being run by operators who do not expect a subsidy. They will take that building on and they will run it.”
He claimed to have spoken to eight companies that were interested in moving into the centre, but Mr Davies said they had not made enquiries to the council about renting offices in the building.
But after a short period of debate held behind closed doors — something allowed to happen if councillors pass a motion that the public interest would be better served by keeping commercially sensitive information private — the scrutiny panel voted to dismiss the call-in and allow the decision to sell off the business centre to proceed unchallenged.
The long leasehold for the building will be returned to the open market for use as office, industrial, or warehouse space.
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
