Council to sell off shop, two flats, large house and old transport depot in Milton Keynes

MK City Council is selling off a shop, two flats, a large house and a former transport depot.

The resolution was made by a single councillor under delegated decision powers in February and the shop and its flats are currently being advertised as up for auction.

The Grade II listed property is in High Street is up for auction with Allsopon September 19, with a guide price is £250,000 plus.

Advertised as a “vacant freehold shop and residential ground rent investment”, it housed popular gift shop Metalyka for 15 years until it closed down in July.

It comes complete with two flats, each with a lease of 125 years.

Previously the council had advertised the premises to lease and the advert stated that “alternative uses can be explored subject to a Change of Use planning application”.

But the delegated decisions report in February states: “The council has no other retail interest in Stony Stratford and there is likely to be fire compartmentation issues which would need to be resolved at a cost of £50,000.”

At the same meeting it was resolved to sell off 2 Drayton Road, Bletchley, a large double fronted three-storey house that is also Grade II listed and comes with a single storey annexe.

The report states: “This has been used over the years to support various supported/temporary accommodation arrangements. The last users left in early spring 2021.

“The property due to its construction and layout is not suitable for TA (temporary accommodation). The two main issues are access to the first and second floor in the original building is by a narrow staircase with low head height, and the covered corridor serving the annexe is in very poor condition and allows water in due to the rotten timber. Numerous temporary repairs have been done but these are less and less effective.”

Some £200,000 of work is needed to the property, according to the report.

The final asset to be disposed of is the council’s former transport depot in Silver Street, Newport Pagnell. This is a yard of around 0.42 ac, plus a six-bay garage, a single-story storage building and a single storey office building.

The report states: “The depot was closed under ARP and there is no longer an operational requirement for this property.”

It estimates that sale of all three assets will raise capital receipts of around £1.4m.

And it adds: “The council is facing pressure within its capital programme and the financing of the programme. The Corporate Property Strategy and the Asset Rationalisation Programme (ARP) has been successful in reducing the overall running costs of buildings and reducing the council’s exposure to backlog maintenance costs. ARP also made recommendations on the closure and disposal of some buildings - most of which have now been implemented.”

Local authority assets can be declared surplus to requirements when there is no potential for regeneration, redevelopment or shared use, when the asset no longer makes a positive contribution to service delivery or when income from the site is below the yield for investing the capital receipt.