Council puts buildings up for sale (From Oxford Mail)

Council puts buildings up for sale

CASH-STRAPPED council chiefs are to sell about £10m worth of buildings, including a former public toilet for studio flats.

A stone barn in South Hinksey

Oxford City Council is set to boost its coffers by selling properties, including cemetery lodges, stables and barns.

Real estate up for grabs includes a Victorian toilet in Headington Hill Park that closed in 2009.

A planning application has been submitted to turn it into a studio flat, a move one estate agent said would net the council £180,000.

The council says the toilet would undergo “minimal alterations”.

The lodge at Wolvercote Cemetery

It falls within the Headington Conservation Area, which affords buildings greater protection than other planning applications.

But Stephanie Jenkins, of Headington and Marston Neighbourhood Forum, said of the big sell-off: “Once they are gone, they are gone forever.

“They could make community buildings, even house a library.”

Roy Darke, councillor for Headington and Northway, said the sales would help the council balance its books in the face of public spending cuts.

He said: “It’s better to find savings through raising income than through making service cuts.

A vacant property in Upper Fisher Row

“It’s not selling off the national silver.”

A redundant dairy barn next to the toilets would also be sold for a studio apartment and two one-bed flats.

The council has already banked £2m from property sales since April last year.

Other plans include converting council-owned stables close to Bury Knowle Park into three flats and pulling down a derelict depot in New High Street, Headington, for three apartments.

The council will not carry out the conversions itself and will instead sell the buildings as a redevelopment opport-unity once planning permission has been granted.

Loos in Headington Hill Park

This week the authority agreed the sale of flats in Rose Hill, worth £475,000.

It is also finalising the sale of Grantham House, a former sheltered housing block in Jericho, which was marketed with a £2.75m price tag.

City centre offices worth an estimated £5m at Ebor House and Ramsey House will also go as council staff are moved elsewhere.

In North Oxford, the sale of Wolvercote Cemetery Lodge is expected to go through soon.

The three-bedroom Victorian property on Banbury Road was on the market for £525,000.

New owners will be bound by an unusual sale clause – they will have to lock the cemetery gates each night to keep residents including Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkein safe.

Offers in the region of £250,000 are being sought for a council-owned stone barn, ripe for conversion, in South Hinksey.

Or for about £100,000, buyers are being offered a former Victorian stables in Upper Fisher Row.