MORE of Oxfordshire County Council’s buildings could be sold or leased out to make extra savings.

The authority needs to identify £60m of savings by 2017, but is sitting on £708m worth of real estate, the Oxford Mail can reveal.

While the vast majority of its property portfolio is school buildings, leader Ian Hudspeth said he was looking at a wide array of ways to make more money from some of its stock.

That is likely to involve renting out office space to private companies and sharing offices with other local authorities, he said.

The county has already made nearly £6m selling off 19 plots in the past three years and hopes to make another £2.25m selling eight more in the coming year.

Because of government cuts, it needs to make another £60m worth of savings in the coming years, and has already considered cutting funds for more than 100 bus services and 44 children’s centres.

Mr Hudspeth previously said the council was “looking at all options” for its Speedwell House office block in Speedwell Street. The four-storey building houses the council’s Parking Shop, where people can pay parking fines, on the ground floor.

He said in February this year the building would be an “ideal location for students flats, a hotel or offices” if a new home could be found for its services.

But speaking to the Mail this week he said: “It would be an ideal place for offices to be built, but if we lease it we get a regular income.

“You can only sell a building once.

“But rent it out and you can end up with more money in the long-run.”

The county’s other main office in Oxford is five-storey County Hall at the top of New Road, home to Oxford Coroner’s Court, meeting rooms, offices and backroom services.

Mr Hudspeth said it provided useful public-facing services and even if it were to be sold the process would probably take too long to help with the current £60m worth of savings needed.

He said: “Everyone immediately says ‘County Hall that is fantastic, knock it down’, but think about how long it has taken the Westgate Centre.

“It is a nice idea but is the market there? I can see the advantage of relocating people out of County Hall but it is a useful location.”

He said the council already makes money from renting out farms which it owns.

Mr Hudspeth said the first thing his council needed to look at was whether it could pull out of any of the offices it currently rents out from other companies. He gave the example of Unipart in Cowley, and said: “We are looking at when the lease comes up for renewal”, but he added “there might be a valid reason to renew the lease”.

He went on: “Our staff has been reduced since 2010 so we don’t need as much space.”

He said the council was interested in “agile working” with staff using video conferencing to work from home or from other offices.